head to head · open source
hugo vs TinaCMS
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TinaCMS has 13,862 stars, 772 forks, 444 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 552% (90,326 vs 13,862 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; TinaCMS is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, TinaCMS 6%. hugo 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 | TinaCMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 772 |
| 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 TinaCMS if
- You want the TinaCMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and TinaCMS 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 TinaCMS
Tina is a headless content management system with support for Markdown , MDX, JSON, YAML, and more. It comes with a GraphQL API: Query your Markdown content like this 👉 post.author.firstName Supports statically generated and server side rendered pages Supports references between documents Tina offers a live preview (optional and opt in) that makes editing Markdown files very intuitive for less technical people. Getting Started Test a TinaCMS starter site locally Or try a demo site on TinaCloud. Documentation Visit Tina's documentation to learn more. Questions? Visit the GitHub Discussions or our Community…
read the full TinaCMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or TinaCMS more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and TinaCMS has 13,862. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and TinaCMS free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and TinaCMS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and TinaCMS?
hugo is written in Go and TinaCMS 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 TinaCMS?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose TinaCMS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.