head to head · open source
hugo vs terminusdb
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. terminusdb has 3,468 stars, 159 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 2,505% (90,326 vs 3,468 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; terminusdb is written in Prolog under Apache-2.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, terminusdb 5%. terminusdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | terminusdb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 3.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Prolog |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 159 |
| 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 terminusdb if
- You want the terminusdb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Prolog
- You evaluated both and terminusdb 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 terminusdb
Project Overview (Updated May 2026) TerminusDB is a distributed database with a collaboration model — git for data. If you find this project useful, please consider starring the repo ⭐ TerminusDB allows you to link JSON and JSON LD documents in a semantic knowledge graph through a powerful document API. It's designed as a system of record, making data management collaborative, versioned, and queryable. Now with new maintainers and an enterprise version. Key Features Revision Control : Commits for every update — track changes over time Diff : Differences between commits can be interpreted as patches between…
read the full terminusdb overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or terminusdb more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and terminusdb has 3,468. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and terminusdb free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and terminusdb under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and terminusdb?
hugo is written in Go and terminusdb in Prolog. 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 terminusdb?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose terminusdb if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.