head to head · open source
decap-cms vs TinaCMS
decap-cms has 19,461 GitHub stars, 3,139 forks, 593 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. TinaCMS has 13,862 stars, 772 forks, 444 open issues and last shipped yesterday. decap-cms leads on adoption by 40% (19,461 vs 13,862 stars). decap-cms is written in JavaScript under MIT; TinaCMS is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. decap-cms has attracted 16% as many forks as stars, TinaCMS 6%. TinaCMS was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cms, content-management-system, react), 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
| decap-cms | TinaCMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 772 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick decap-cms if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick TinaCMS if
- You want the TinaCMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and TinaCMS fits your workflow better
About decap-cms
Documentation: decapcms.org A CMS for static site generators. Give teams a simple way to edit and add content to any site built with a static site generator. Decap CMS is the new name of Netlify CMS since February 2023. Join us on Discord for community chat. How It Works Decap CMS is a single page app that you pull into the /admin part of your site. It presents a clean UI for editing content stored in a Git repository. You setup a YAML config to describe the content model of your site, and typically tweak the main layout of the CMS a bit to fit your own site. When a user navigates to /admin/ they'll be prompted…
read the full decap-cms overview →
About TinaCMS
Tina is a headless content management system with support for Markdown , MDX, JSON, YAML, and more. It comes with a GraphQL API: Query your Markdown content like this 👉 post.author.firstName Supports statically generated and server side rendered pages Supports references between documents Tina offers a live preview (optional and opt in) that makes editing Markdown files very intuitive for less technical people. Getting Started Test a TinaCMS starter site locally Or try a demo site on TinaCloud. Documentation Visit Tina's documentation to learn more. Questions? Visit the GitHub Discussions or our Community…
read the full TinaCMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is decap-cms or TinaCMS more popular?
decap-cms has 19,461 GitHub stars and TinaCMS has 13,862. decap-cms has the larger community by that measure.
Are decap-cms and TinaCMS free?
Both are open source. decap-cms is licensed under MIT and TinaCMS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between decap-cms and TinaCMS?
decap-cms is written in JavaScript and TinaCMS 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, decap-cms or TinaCMS?
Choose decap-cms if you want the larger community (19,461 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose TinaCMS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.