head to head · open source
halo vs wondercms
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars, 10,329 forks, 112 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wondercms has 740 stars, 168 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. halo leads on adoption by 5,277% (39,787 vs 740 stars). halo is written in Java under GPL-3.0; wondercms is written in PHP under MIT. halo has attracted 26% as many forks as stars, wondercms 23%. halo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (blog, 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 | wondercms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 740 |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Java | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 168 |
| 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 wondercms if
- You want the wondercms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and wondercms 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 wondercms
WonderCMS is a flat file content management system written in PHP and distributed under the MIT license. It is presented as a five file project, approximately 50KB when zipped, and it stores site data in a JSON database instead of a conventional external database server. The project lives in the content management system ecosystem, specifically the flat file CMS niche, and its topics include blogs, landing pages, lightweight sites, and content management.
read the full wondercms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is halo or wondercms more popular?
halo has 39,787 GitHub stars and wondercms has 740. halo has the larger community by that measure.
Are halo and wondercms free?
Both are open source. halo is licensed under GPL-3.0 and wondercms under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between halo and wondercms?
halo is written in Java and wondercms 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 wondercms?
Choose halo if you want the larger community (39,787 stars) or its GPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose wondercms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.