head to head · open source
hugo vs Twill CMS
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Twill CMS has 3,972 stars, 591 forks, 136 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. hugo leads on adoption by 2,174% (90,326 vs 3,972 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Twill CMS is written in PHP under Apache-2.0. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Twill CMS 15%. 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 | Twill CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 4.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 591 |
| 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 Twill CMS if
- You want the Twill CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Twill CMS 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 Twill CMS
About Twill Twill is an open source Laravel package that helps developers rapidly create a custom CMS that is beautiful, powerful, and flexible. By standardizing common functions without compromising developer control, Twill makes it easy to deliver a feature rich admin console that focuses on modern publishing needs. Twill is an AREA 17 product. It was crafted with the belief that content management should be a creative, productive, and enjoyable experience for both publishers and developers. Benefits overview With a vast number of pre built features and custom built Vue.js UI components, developers can focus…
read the full Twill CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or Twill CMS more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and Twill CMS has 3,972. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and Twill CMS free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Twill CMS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and Twill CMS?
hugo is written in Go and Twill CMS 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 Twill CMS?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Twill CMS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.