head to head · open source
hugo vs OrchardCore
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OrchardCore has 8,223 stars, 2,607 forks, 854 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 998% (90,326 vs 8,223 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; OrchardCore is written in C# under BSD-3-Clause. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, OrchardCore 32%. OrchardCore 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 | OrchardCore | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 8.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 2.6K |
| 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 OrchardCore if
- You want the OrchardCore feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and OrchardCore 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 OrchardCore
Orchard Core Orchard Core is an open source, modular, multi tenant application framework and CMS for ASP.NET Core. Orchard Core consists of two distinct projects: Orchard Core Framework : An application framework for building modular, multi tenant applications on ASP.NET Core. Orchard Core CMS : A Web Content Management System (CMS) built on top of the Orchard Core Framework. Build Status Stable ( release/3.0 ): Nightly ( main ): Project Status: v3.0.1 The software is production ready and capable of serving large, mission critical applications. We are not aware of any fundamental bugs or missing features we deem…
read the full OrchardCore overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or OrchardCore more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and OrchardCore has 8,223. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and OrchardCore free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and OrchardCore under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and OrchardCore?
hugo is written in Go and OrchardCore in C#. 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 OrchardCore?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose OrchardCore if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.