head to head · open source
halo vs Statamic
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Statamic has 4,891 stars, 642 forks, 258 open issues and last shipped yesterday. halo leads on adoption by 713% (39,787 vs 4,891 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; Statamic is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, Statamic 13%. Statamic 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.
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Side by side
| halo | Statamic | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.9K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 642 |
| 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 Statamic if
- You want the Statamic feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Statamic 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 Statamic
Statamic is a content management system built for the Laravel ecosystem, distributed as a Composer package that is installed into an existing Laravel application. It describes itself as a flat first CMS powered by Laravel and Git, and the repository holds the core package rather than a standalone application. A separate application repository provides a Laravel project preconfigured with Statamic, which the Statamic CLI tool uses when creating a new project.
read the full Statamic overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is halo or Statamic more popular?
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars and Statamic has 4,891. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and Statamic free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0, and Statamic has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between halo and Statamic?
halo is written in Java and Statamic 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 Statamic?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,787 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Statamic if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.