head to head · open source
halo vs vaahcms
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vaahcms has 573 stars, 25 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 5 months ago. halo leads on adoption by 6,844% (39,787 vs 573 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; vaahcms is written in PHP under MIT. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, vaahcms 4%. 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 | vaahcms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 573 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-04-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 25 |
| 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 vaahcms if
- You want the vaahcms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and vaahcms 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 vaahcms
VaahCMS is an MIT licensed, Laravel based open source web application development platform shipped with a headless content management system, built for teams that want to develop applications and manage content inside one codebase rather than stitching a CMS and a Laravel project together.
read the full vaahcms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is halo or vaahcms more popular?
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars and vaahcms has 573. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and vaahcms free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and vaahcms under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and vaahcms?
halo is written in Java and vaahcms 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 vaahcms?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,787 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose vaahcms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.