head to head · open source
hugo vs mediacms
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mediacms has 5,113 stars, 957 forks, 146 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 1,657% (89,854 vs 5,113 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; mediacms is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, mediacms 19%. mediacms 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 | mediacms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 5.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 957 |
| 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 mediacms if
- You want the mediacms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and mediacms 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 mediacms
MediaCMS is a modern, fully featured open source video and media CMS, written in Python/Django and React with a REST API, for anyone who wants to build and run a self hosted small to medium video and media portal.
read the full mediacms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or mediacms more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and mediacms has 5,113. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and mediacms free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and mediacms under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and mediacms?
hugo is written in Go and mediacms 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 mediacms?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose mediacms if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.