head to head · open source
hugo vs Marble CMS
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Marble CMS has 385 stars, 55 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. hugo leads on adoption by 23,239% (89,854 vs 385 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Marble CMS is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Marble CMS 14%. hugo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (cms), 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 | Marble CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 385 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 55 |
| 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 Marble CMS if
- You want the Marble CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Marble CMS fits your workflow better
About hugo
Hugo is a static site generator written in Go that renders a complete site in seconds, often less, and it is aimed at developers, technical writers, and content teams who build blogs, documentation sites, portfolios, landing pages, and corporate sites as static files.
About Marble CMS
Marble CMS is a headless content management system written in TypeScript and released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. Its repository carries the description "Super simple headless CMS", and its tagline positions it as simple content management for modern sites. The project sits in the TypeScript and JavaScript ecosystem and is filed under Content & Publishing, specifically the Content Management Systems category. It carries topics covering cms, cms backend, cms framework, headless, headless cms, and marble, with a homepage at marblecms.com and a Discord community alongside a Twitter account. The…
read the full Marble CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or Marble CMS more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and Marble CMS has 385. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and Marble CMS free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Marble CMS under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and Marble CMS?
hugo is written in Go and Marble CMS in TypeScript. 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 Marble CMS?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Marble CMS if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.