head to head · open source
hugo vs Umbraco-CMS
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Umbraco-CMS has 5,280 stars, 2,947 forks, 525 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 1,611% (90,326 vs 5,280 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Umbraco-CMS is written in C# under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, Umbraco-CMS 56%. Umbraco-CMS 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 | Umbraco-CMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 5.3K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | C# |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 2.9K |
| 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 Umbraco-CMS if
- You want the Umbraco-CMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and Umbraco-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 Umbraco-CMS
Umbraco CMS Umbraco is a free and open source .NET content management system. Our mission is to help you deliver delightful digital experiences by making Umbraco friendly, simpler and social. Learn more at umbraco.com Looking to install Umbraco? You can get started using the following commands on Windows, Linux and MacOS (after installing the .NET Runtime and SDK): Documentation Our comprehensive documentation takes you from the fundamentals on how to start with Umbraco to deploying it to production. Some important documentation links to get you started: Installing Umbraco CMS Getting to know Umbraco Tutorials…
read the full Umbraco-CMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or Umbraco-CMS more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and Umbraco-CMS has 5,280. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and Umbraco-CMS free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Umbraco-CMS under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and Umbraco-CMS?
hugo is written in Go and Umbraco-CMS in C#. 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 Umbraco-CMS?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Umbraco-CMS if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.