head to head · open source
gatsby vs elm-pages
gatsby has 55,921 GitHub stars, 10,089 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. elm-pages has 698 stars, 102 forks, 81 open issues and last shipped 6 months ago. gatsby leads on adoption by 7,912% (55,921 vs 698 stars). gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT; elm-pages is written in Elm under BSD-3-Clause. gatsby has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, elm-pages 15%. gatsby was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (blog, 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
| gatsby | elm-pages | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 698 |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | Elm |
| Last push | 2026-10-20 | 2026-05-22 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 102 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gatsby if
- You weight community size — 56K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick elm-pages if
- You want the elm-pages feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Elm
- You evaluated both and elm-pages fits your workflow better
About gatsby
Gatsby The future of web development is here. Gatsby is a free and open source framework based on React that helps developers build blazing fast websites and apps. It combines the control and scalability of dynamically rendered sites with the speed of static site generation, creating a whole new web of possibilities. Quickstart · Tutorial · Plugins · Starters · Showcase · Contribute Support: Discussions Gatsby helps professional developers efficiently create maintainable, highly performant, content rich websites. Load Data From Anywhere. Gatsby pulls in data from any data source, whether it’s Markdown files, a…
read the full gatsby overview →
About elm-pages
elm pages elm pages is a framework for building an Elm single page app that is able to seamlessly interface with data from an Elm Backend. elm pages is a hybrid framework, allowing you to define Routes that are either server rendered (for more dynamic content with user specific or request specific data) or pre rendered at build time (for generating static HTML files that are hosted through a CDN). You can mix and match server rendered and pre rendered routes in your app. elm pages also has a command for running pure Elm scripts with a single command. See the elm pages Scripts docs page. What's new in 12.2 Tui —…
read the full elm-pages overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gatsby or elm-pages more popular?
gatsby has 55,921 GitHub stars and elm-pages has 698. gatsby has the larger community by that measure.
Are gatsby and elm-pages free?
Both are open source. gatsby is licensed under MIT and elm-pages under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gatsby and elm-pages?
gatsby is written in JavaScript and elm-pages in Elm. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gatsby or elm-pages?
Choose gatsby if you want the larger community (55,921 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose elm-pages if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.