head to head · open source
hugo vs revolution
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. revolution has 1,409 stars, 527 forks, 687 open issues and last shipped 15 days ago. hugo leads on adoption by 6,277% (89,854 vs 1,409 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; revolution is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, revolution 37%. hugo was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (content-management-system), 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 | revolution | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 527 |
| 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 revolution if
- You want the revolution feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and revolution 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 revolution
MODX Revolution is an open source content management system and application framework written in PHP. It lives in the MODX open source PHP CMS ecosystem and is distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. The project provides a downloadable PHP application that can be installed on a server, configured through MODX documentation, and extended through its modular core.
read the full revolution overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or revolution more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and revolution has 1,409. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and revolution free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and revolution under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and revolution?
hugo is written in Go and revolution in PHP. 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 revolution?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose revolution if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.