head to head · open source
homeland vs Misago
homeland has 3,859 GitHub stars, 1,176 forks, 27 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Misago has 2,776 stars, 557 forks, 171 open issues and last shipped yesterday. homeland leads on adoption by 39% (3,859 vs 2,776 stars). homeland is written in Ruby under MIT; Misago is written in Python under GPL-2.0. homeland has attracted 30% as many forks as stars, Misago 20%. Misago was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (forum), 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
| homeland | Misago | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.9K | ★ 2.8K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Python |
| Last push | 2026-08-08 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 557 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick homeland if
- You weight community size — 3.9K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Misago if
- You want the Misago feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Misago fits your workflow better
About homeland
Homeland is an open source forum and community system written in Ruby and built on Ruby on Rails. It is described as an open source discussion website, and its tagline says that it was developed based on Ruby China. That places it in the community platform category, where the main purpose is to operate a discussion website.
read the full homeland overview →
About Misago
Misago is a Python and Django forum application for building online community forums. It lives in the Python and Django web ecosystem and presents itself as a modern forum platform that challenges outdated forum software opinions.
read the full Misago overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is homeland or Misago more popular?
homeland has 3,859 GitHub stars and Misago has 2,776. homeland has the larger community by that measure.
Are homeland and Misago free?
Both are open source. homeland is licensed under MIT and Misago under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between homeland and Misago?
homeland is written in Ruby and Misago in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, homeland or Misago?
Choose homeland if you want the larger community (3,859 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Misago if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.