head to head · open source
hugo vs Strapi
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi has 73,184 stars, 9,875 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 23% (89,854 vs 73,184 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Strapi 13%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cms, 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 | Strapi | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 73K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 9.9K |
| 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 Strapi if
- You want the Strapi feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and Strapi 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 Strapi
Strapi is an open source headless content management system built entirely in JavaScript and TypeScript. It provides a customizable admin dashboard and automatically generates REST and GraphQL APIs for any content structure defined through its visual Content Type Builder. Strapi lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and targets developers who need to deliver content to diverse frontends—including web, mobile, and IoT applications—without being locked into a specific presentation layer.
read the full Strapi overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or Strapi more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and Strapi has 73,184. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and Strapi free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Strapi has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between hugo and Strapi?
hugo is written in Go and Strapi 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 Strapi?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Strapi if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.