head to head · open source
gatsby vs kit
gatsby has 55,920 GitHub stars, 10,091 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. kit has 9,781 stars, 2,949 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. gatsby leads on adoption by 472% (55,920 vs 9,781 stars). gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT; kit is written in HTML under MIT. gatsby has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, kit 30%. gatsby was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (blog), 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 | kit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 9.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-10-20 | 2026-08-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| 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 kit if
- You want the kit feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and kit 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 kit
中文 Describe your site. AI builds it. You own it as Markdown. HugoBlox is the open source framework for building professional sites from structured Markdown — landing pages, portfolios, blogs, publications, docs, and more. Pick a template, let Hugo Chat AI generate your pages, and deploy anywhere. Every file is plain Markdown you can read, edit, and own forever. Generate Pages with AI Browse Templates Ownable CMS for VS Code Trusted since 2016 · 150,000+ sites (Meta, Stanford, NVIDIA) · Rated 4.9/5 by users (official survey) · Used by teams at NVIDIA Research , MIT , and King's College London · Featured by GitHub…
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Frequently asked questions
Is gatsby or kit more popular?
gatsby has 55,920 GitHub stars and kit has 9,781. gatsby has the larger community by that measure.
Are gatsby and kit free?
Both are open source. gatsby is licensed under MIT and kit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gatsby and kit?
gatsby is written in JavaScript and kit in HTML. 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 kit?
Choose gatsby if you want the larger community (55,920 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.