head to head · open source
halo vs beacon
halo has 39,797 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped today. beacon has 1,260 stars, 135 forks, 70 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. halo leads on adoption by 3,058% (39,797 vs 1,260 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; beacon is written in Elixir under MIT. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, beacon 11%. 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 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| halo | beacon | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 1.3K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Elixir |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 135 |
| 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 beacon if
- You want the beacon feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Elixir
- You evaluated both and beacon 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 beacon
Beacon Beacon is a content management system (CMS) built with Phoenix LiveView. It brings the rendering speed benefits of Phoenix to even the most content heavy pages with faster render times to boost SEO performance. Getting Started Install both Phoenix and Igniter installers: Now you can either create a new Phoenix project with Beacon or add Beacon to an existing Phoenix project: Create a new project Using latest published beacon and beacon live admin packages: Or using the unreleased projects from GitHub from the main branch: Replace my app and my site with the names you want to generate and follow the prompts…
read the full beacon 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 beacon more popular?
halo has 39,797 GitHub stars and beacon has 1,260. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and beacon free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and beacon under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and beacon?
halo is written in Java and beacon in Elixir. 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 beacon?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,797 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose beacon if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.