head to head · open source
Ghost vs kit
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars, 11,975 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kit has 9,721 stars, 2,954 forks, 26 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. Ghost leads on adoption by 469% (55,339 vs 9,721 stars). Ghost is written in TypeScript under MIT; kit is written in HTML under MIT. Ghost has attracted 22% as many forks as stars, kit 30%. Ghost was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | kit | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 55K | ★ 9.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 12K | ⑂ 3.0K |
| 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 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 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 kit
HugoBlox (listed in this registry as kit) is a free, MIT licensed static site framework that turns a plain English description into AI generated pages while keeping every page as Markdown you own, built for academics, researchers, developers, and small teams who need professional landing pages, portfolios, blogs, publications, and documentation without a database or a paid site builder.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Ghost or kit more popular?
Ghost has 55,339 GitHub stars and kit has 9,721. Ghost has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ghost and kit free?
Both are open source. Ghost is licensed under MIT and kit under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ghost and kit?
Ghost is written in TypeScript 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, Ghost or kit?
Choose Ghost if you want the larger community (55,339 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose kit if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.