head to head · open source
halo vs alchemy_cms
halo has 39,797 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped today. alchemy_cms has 905 stars, 324 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped yesterday. halo leads on adoption by 4,297% (39,797 vs 905 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; alchemy_cms is written in Ruby under BSD-3-Clause. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, alchemy_cms 36%. halo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cms, content-management-system), 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| halo | alchemy_cms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 905 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Java | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 324 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick halo if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick alchemy_cms if
- You want the alchemy_cms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and alchemy_cms fits your workflow better
About halo
Halo is an open source, Java based website building tool licensed under GPL 3.0 that lets individuals and teams publish and run a blog, knowledge base, corporate website, or online store from infrastructure they control.
About alchemy_cms
AlchemyCMS Alchemy is an open source CMS engine written in Ruby on Rails. Read more about Alchemy on the website and in the guidelines. [!CAUTION] This main branch is a development branch that can contain bugs. For productive environments you should use the current Ruby gem version, or the latest stable branch (8.0 stable). 🏆 Main sponsor ✅ Features Flexible templating that separates content from markup A rich RESTful API Intuitive admin interface with live preview Multi language and multi domain Page versioning SEO friendly urls User Access Control Build in contact form mailer Attachments and downloads On the f…
read the full alchemy_cms overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Content Management Systems (CMS) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Content Management Systems (CMS) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is halo or alchemy_cms more popular?
halo has 39,797 GitHub stars and alchemy_cms has 905. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and alchemy_cms free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and alchemy_cms under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and alchemy_cms?
halo is written in Java and alchemy_cms in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, halo or alchemy_cms?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,797 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose alchemy_cms if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.