head to head · open source
hexo vs actions-gh-pages
hexo has 41,779 GitHub stars, 42 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped 22 days ago. actions-gh-pages has 5,362 stars, 450 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. hexo leads on adoption by 679% (41,779 vs 5,362 stars). hexo is written in TypeScript under MIT; actions-gh-pages is written in TypeScript under MIT. hexo has attracted 0% as many forks as stars, actions-gh-pages 8%. actions-gh-pages was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (static-site-generator), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| hexo | actions-gh-pages | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 42K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-29 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 42 | ⑂ 450 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hexo if
- You weight community size — 42K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick actions-gh-pages if
- You want the actions-gh-pages feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and actions-gh-pages fits your workflow better
About hexo
Hexo is a static site generator for blogs, built on Node.js and distributed as the hexo package through npm. The project is written in TypeScript, licensed under MIT, and lives in the Node.js and JavaScript ecosystem alongside the broader set of static site generators tracked under the static site generator topic. It has been published for roughly 14 years, carries about 41,766 stars, and points users to a dedicated website and documentation set at hexo.io.
About actions-gh-pages
This project is a GitHub Action that deploys static files to GitHub Pages. It lives in the GitHub Actions ecosystem, is written in TypeScript, and is distributed under the MIT license. The action takes a build output directory from a workflow and publishes its contents to a branch that GitHub Pages serves, so a repository can go from committed source to a live site without any manual upload step. It is designed to pair with static site generators rather than to replace them, and the topic list names Hugo, MkDocs, Gatsby, mdBook, Next, Nuxt, and VuePress among the tools it is used alongside.
read the full actions-gh-pages overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hexo or actions-gh-pages more popular?
hexo has 41,779 GitHub stars and actions-gh-pages has 5,362. hexo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hexo and actions-gh-pages free?
Both are open source. hexo is licensed under MIT and actions-gh-pages under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hexo and actions-gh-pages?
hexo is written in TypeScript and actions-gh-pages in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, hexo or actions-gh-pages?
Choose hexo if you want the larger community (41,779 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose actions-gh-pages if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.