head to head · open source
Ghost vs htmly
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars, 11,975 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. htmly has 1,362 stars, 306 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Ghost leads on adoption by 3,963% (55,339 vs 1,362 stars). Ghost is written in TypeScript under MIT; htmly is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. Ghost has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, htmly 22%. Ghost 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
| Ghost | htmly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 55K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-01-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 306 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ghost if
- You weight community size — 55K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick htmly if
- You want the htmly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and htmly fits your workflow better
About Ghost
Ghost is an open source publishing platform built in Node.js and TypeScript, designed for blogs, newsletters, and membership based content sites. It runs as a self hosted web application and also powers Ghost(Pro), a managed service where all revenue supports the Ghost Foundation. The project lives in the JavaScript/Node.js ecosystem and is licensed under MIT.
read the full Ghost overview →
About htmly
HTMLy is an open source blogging platform and flat file CMS written in PHP. It serves people who want a blog or simple website without running a database server. The project stores content in files and uses an algorithm to list material by date, type, category, tag, or author. It lives in the PHP web publishing ecosystem.
read the full htmly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghost or htmly more popular?
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars and htmly has 1,362. Ghost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghost and htmly free?
Both are open source. Ghost is licensed under MIT and htmly under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghost and htmly?
Ghost is written in TypeScript and htmly in PHP. 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 htmly?
Choose Ghost if you want the larger community (55,339 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose htmly if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.