head to head · open source
hugo vs revolution
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. revolution has 1,415 stars, 532 forks, 687 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. hugo leads on adoption by 6,283% (90,326 vs 1,415 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 38%. 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-28 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 532 |
| 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
[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 revolution
MODX Revolution MODX Revolution is the world’s fastest, most secure, flexible and scalable Open Source CMS Content Management System and Application Framework MODX lets you power anything from multi language, multi domain corporate sites to personal blogs to mobile APIs. Delivering true creative freedom and removing all restrictions, it lets you control the markup and design without having to code. You can also tailor its modular and extensible core to accommodate virtually any custom requirement or amount of traffic. MODX is the free open source software that meets your needs today—and tomorrow. MODX Revolution…
read the full revolution overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or revolution more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and revolution has 1,415. 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 (90,326 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.