head to head · open source
gatsby vs hexo
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars, 10,115 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hexo has 41,770 stars, 42 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped 20 days ago. gatsby leads on adoption by 34% (55,939 vs 41,770 stars). gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT; hexo is written in TypeScript under MIT. gatsby has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, hexo 0%. gatsby 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
| gatsby | hexo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 42K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-29 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 42 |
| 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 hexo if
- You want the hexo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and hexo fits your workflow better
About gatsby
Gatsby is a free and open source, React based framework for building websites and applications, released under the MIT license and written primarily in JavaScript. It combines the control and scalability of dynamically rendered sites with the speed of static site generation, and it sits in the JavaScript and React ecosystem as a static site generator, a compiler, and a GraphQL driven build tool. The project has been developed for roughly eleven years, carries 55,939 stars and 10,117 forks on GitHub, and currently has 450 open issues.
read the full gatsby overview →
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.
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Frequently asked questions
Is gatsby or hexo more popular?
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars and hexo has 41,770. gatsby has the larger community by that measure.
Are gatsby and hexo free?
Both are open source. gatsby is licensed under MIT and hexo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gatsby and hexo?
gatsby is written in JavaScript and hexo 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, gatsby or hexo?
Choose gatsby if you want the larger community (55,939 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hexo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.