epydoc and Sphinx are different types of tools.
They are the same in that they:
- Both use ReST via docutils.
- Both are very Pythonic in their focus
- Both can generate HTML and PDF documentation
They are different in their focus.
- Epydoc is focused on API (Developer) documentation. You get more results quicker with Epydoc. You point it at your source code and you get something. This is what I want from an API documentation tool.
- Sphinx is focused on general (User) documentation. While Sphinx does pull a lot of information from your source code you need to put a little more into it. Sphinx can generate API documentation but, it’s not as straight forward, and IMO doesn’t do as good of a job as Epydoc. I know some will disagree because Sphinx is chosen for Python. BUT, it depends on how much work you want to put into it. I do love Sphinx for general documentation.
So it depends on how much work you want to put into it and what you are documenting.