head to head · open source
hugo vs sanity
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sanity has 6,383 stars, 558 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 1,315% (90,326 vs 6,383 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; sanity is written in TypeScript under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, sanity 9%. sanity 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 | sanity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 558 |
| 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 sanity if
- You want the sanity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sanity 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 sanity
Sanity Get Started Docs Website Build powerful production ready content workspaces The Sanity Composable Content Cloud lets teams create remarkable digital experiences at scale. Sanity Studio is an open source, single page application that is fast to set up and quick to configure. The Studio comes with a complete studio customization framework that lets you tailor the workspace as your needs grow. Sanity hosts your content in a real time, hosted data store called Content Lake. Get started with the free plan with generous bandwidth and hosting included and pay as you go for overages. Quickstart Initiate a new…
read the full sanity overview →
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Related comparisons
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or sanity more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and sanity has 6,383. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and sanity free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and sanity under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and sanity?
hugo is written in Go and sanity in TypeScript. 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 sanity?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose sanity if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.