head to head · open source
halo vs badaso
halo has 39,941 GitHub stars, 10,322 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped today. badaso has 1,255 stars, 227 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. halo leads on adoption by 3,083% (39,941 vs 1,255 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; badaso is written in PHP under MIT. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, badaso 18%. halo 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| halo | badaso | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-14 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 227 |
| 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 badaso if
- You want the badaso feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and badaso 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 badaso
badaso is an open source, MIT licensed Laravel and Vue headless CMS, admin panel, dashboard and CRUD API generator for PHP teams that need to build application backends and admin interfaces without hand writing them.
read the full badaso 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 badaso more popular?
halo has 39,941 GitHub stars and badaso has 1,255. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and badaso free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and badaso under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and badaso?
halo is written in Java and badaso 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, halo or badaso?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,941 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose badaso if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.