head to head · open source
hugo vs gatsby
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gatsby has 55,921 stars, 10,089 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. hugo leads on adoption by 62% (90,326 vs 55,921 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, gatsby 18%. hugo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (static-site-generator), 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
| hugo | gatsby | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 56K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 10K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hugo if
- You weight community size — 90K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gatsby if
- You want the gatsby feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and gatsby fits your workflow better
About hugo
[Clang]: [GCC]: [Git]: [Go]: [bep]: [bugs]: [contributing]: CONTRIBUTING.md [create a proposal]: [dart sass]: [details]: [documentation repository]: [documentation]: [dragonfly bsd, freebsd, netbsd, and openbsd]: [features]: [forum]: [friends]: [hugo modules]: [installation]: [issue queue]: [linux]: [macos]: [prebuilt binary]: [requesting help]: [spf13]: [static site generator]: [support]: [themes]: [transpile sass to css]: [website]: [windows]: A fast and flexible static site generator built with love by [bep][], [spf13][], and [friends][] in Go. [Website][] [Installation][] [Documentation][] [Support][]…
About gatsby
Gatsby The future of web development is here. Gatsby is a free and open source framework based on React that helps developers build blazing fast websites and apps. It combines the control and scalability of dynamically rendered sites with the speed of static site generation, creating a whole new web of possibilities. Quickstart · Tutorial · Plugins · Starters · Showcase · Contribute Support: Discussions Gatsby helps professional developers efficiently create maintainable, highly performant, content rich websites. Load Data From Anywhere. Gatsby pulls in data from any data source, whether it’s Markdown files, a…
read the full gatsby overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or gatsby more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and gatsby has 55,921. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and gatsby free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gatsby under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and gatsby?
hugo is written in Go and gatsby in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, hugo or gatsby?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gatsby if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.