head to head · open source
actions-gh-pages vs htmly
actions-gh-pages has 5,362 GitHub stars, 450 forks, 95 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. htmly has 1,363 stars, 306 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. actions-gh-pages leads on adoption by 293% (5,362 vs 1,363 stars). actions-gh-pages is written in TypeScript under MIT; htmly is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. actions-gh-pages has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, htmly 22%. actions-gh-pages was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| actions-gh-pages | htmly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 5.4K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-01-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 450 | ⑂ 306 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick actions-gh-pages if
- You weight community size — 5.4K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick htmly if
- You want the htmly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and htmly fits your workflow better
About actions-gh-pages
This project is a GitHub Action that deploys static files to GitHub Pages. It lives in the GitHub Actions ecosystem, is written in TypeScript, and is distributed under the MIT license. The action takes a build output directory from a workflow and publishes its contents to a branch that GitHub Pages serves, so a repository can go from committed source to a live site without any manual upload step. It is designed to pair with static site generators rather than to replace them, and the topic list names Hugo, MkDocs, Gatsby, mdBook, Next, Nuxt, and VuePress among the tools it is used alongside.
read the full actions-gh-pages overview →
About htmly
HTMLy is an open source blogging platform and flat file CMS written in PHP. It serves people who want a blog or simple website without running a database server. The project stores content in files and uses an algorithm to list material by date, type, category, tag, or author. It lives in the PHP web publishing ecosystem.
read the full htmly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is actions-gh-pages or htmly more popular?
actions-gh-pages has 5,362 GitHub stars and htmly has 1,363. actions-gh-pages has the larger community by that measure.
Are actions-gh-pages and htmly free?
Both are open source. actions-gh-pages is licensed under MIT and htmly under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between actions-gh-pages and htmly?
actions-gh-pages is written in TypeScript and htmly 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, actions-gh-pages or htmly?
Choose actions-gh-pages if you want the larger community (5,362 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose htmly if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.