head to head · open source
filament vs nesta
filament has 32,397 GitHub stars, 4,237 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nesta has 899 stars, 121 forks, 5 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. filament leads on adoption by 3,504% (32,397 vs 899 stars). filament is written in PHP under MIT; nesta is written in Ruby under MIT. filament has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, nesta 13%. filament was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cms), 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
| filament | nesta | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 899 |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-06-23 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 121 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick filament if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nesta if
- You want the nesta feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and nesta fits your workflow better
About filament
Build apps & admin panels fast, for your bright ideas. With a solid Laravel foundation and a polished UI, you can focus on what makes your product unique. Filament gives you UI components that you won't outgrow — a cohesive set of well considered building blocks that adapt as your application grows in complexity. Tables — Browse and filter large datasets with powerful columns, actions, and bulk operations. Forms — Build complex, reactive forms using a set of reusable, state aware components. Infolists — Render read only record views with structured layouts and custom formatting. Notifications — Trigger in app…
read the full filament overview →
About nesta
File Based CMS and Static Site Generator Nesta is a lightweight CMS for building content sites and blogs, written in Ruby using the [Sinatra] web framework. Write your content in [Markdown] or [Textile], in your text editor (drop into HTML or Haml if you need more control) Files are stored in text files on your hard drive (there is no database) Publish changes by putting these files online (Git recommended, not required) Deploy either as a static site (SSG) or by rendering HTML on the server (SSR) [Sinatra]: "Sinatra" [Markdown]: [Textile]: Installation Begin by [installing Ruby], then the Nesta gem: $ gem…
read the full nesta overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is filament or nesta more popular?
filament has 32,397 GitHub stars and nesta has 899. filament has the larger community by that measure.
Are filament and nesta free?
Both are open source. filament is licensed under MIT and nesta under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between filament and nesta?
filament is written in PHP and nesta in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, filament or nesta?
Choose filament if you want the larger community (32,397 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nesta if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.