head to head · open source
hugo vs Publii
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Publii has 7,312 stars, 468 forks, 300 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 1,129% (89,854 vs 7,312 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Publii is written in HTML under GPL-3.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Publii 6%. Publii was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cms, 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 | Publii | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 7.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | HTML |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 468 |
| 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 Publii if
- You want the Publii feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches HTML
- You evaluated both and Publii 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 Publii
Publii is a desktop based content management system for Windows, Mac and Linux, built with Electron, that produces static websites from a graphical interface. It is licensed under GPL 3.0, carries over 7,300 stars and 469 forks on GitHub, and sits in the static site generator ecosystem alongside HTML and Handlebars based tooling. Themes and templating use Handlebars, and the shipped application targets Linux distributions including Fedora, macOS and Windows.
read the full Publii overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or Publii more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and Publii has 7,312. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and Publii free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Publii under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and Publii?
hugo is written in Go and Publii in HTML. 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 Publii?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Publii if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.