head to head · open source
Ghost vs hexo
Ghost has 55,658 GitHub stars, 12,130 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hexo has 41,782 stars, 55 forks, 75 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. Ghost leads on adoption by 33% (55,658 vs 41,782 stars). Ghost is written in TypeScript under MIT; hexo is written in TypeScript under MIT. Ghost has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, hexo 0%. Ghost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (javascript, nodejs), 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
| Ghost | hexo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 42K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 55 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ghost if
- You weight community size — 56K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 Ghost
Ghost.org • Forum • Docs • Contributing • Twitter [!NOTE] Love open source? We're hiring! Ghost is looking staff engineers to join the team and work with us full time The easiest way to get a production instance deployed is with our official Ghost(Pro) managed service. It takes about 2 minutes to launch a new site with worldwide CDN, backups, security and maintenance all done for you. For most people this ends up being the best value option because of how much time it saves — and 100% of revenue goes to the Ghost Foundation; funding the maintenance and further development of the project itself. So you’ll be…
read the full Ghost overview →
About hexo
Hexo A fast, simple & powerful blog framework, powered by Node.js. Website Documentation Installation Guide Contribution Guide Code of Conduct API Twitter Features Blazing fast generating Support for GitHub Flavored Markdown and most Octopress plugins One command deploy to GitHub Pages, Heroku, etc. Powerful API for limitless extensibility Hundreds of themes & plugins Quick Start Install Hexo Install with brew on macOS and Linux: Setup your blog Start the server Create a new post Generate static files More Information Read the documentation Visit the Awesome Hexo list Find solutions in troubleshooting Join…
More in Content & Publishing
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghost or hexo more popular?
Ghost has 55,658 GitHub stars and hexo has 41,782. Ghost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghost and hexo free?
Both are open source. Ghost is licensed under MIT and hexo under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghost and hexo?
Ghost is written in TypeScript 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, Ghost or hexo?
Choose Ghost if you want the larger community (55,658 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose hexo if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.