head to head · open source
halo vs Twill CMS
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Twill CMS has 3,975 stars, 589 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. halo leads on adoption by 901% (39,787 vs 3,975 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; Twill CMS is written in PHP under Apache-2.0. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, Twill CMS 15%. 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.
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Side by side
| halo | Twill CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | GPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 589 |
| 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 Twill CMS if
- You want the Twill CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Twill 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 Twill CMS
Twill is an open source CMS toolkit and Laravel package. It helps developers create a custom admin console for content management. The project lives in the Laravel ecosystem and uses Vue.js for the interface. It is intended for modern publishing needs, where developers need an intuitive and flexible admin console without building every standard feature from scratch.
read the full Twill CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is halo or Twill CMS more popular?
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars and Twill CMS has 3,975. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and Twill CMS free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Twill CMS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and Twill CMS?
halo is written in Java and Twill CMS 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 Twill CMS?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,787 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Twill CMS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.