head to head · open source
hugo vs vaahcms
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. vaahcms has 571 stars, 25 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 7 months ago. hugo leads on adoption by 15,719% (90,326 vs 571 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; vaahcms is written in PHP under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, vaahcms 4%. 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 | vaahcms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 571 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-04-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 25 |
| 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 vaahcms if
- You want the vaahcms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and vaahcms 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 vaahcms
VaahCMS is an open source web application development platform shipped with headless content management system. VaahCMS is built with Laravel , Vue , Pinia , and PrimeVue which follows Hierarchical Model View Controller (HMVC) architectural pattern which supports multiple Modules and Themes . Each module and theme can be setup with just blade files support or can have its own frontend JavaScript library e.g. Vue or React . Introduction Features Documentation Quick Start Why VaahCMS? How many times have you used a CMS to build website and Laravel for application development? Everytime, isn't it? Well, not next…
read the full vaahcms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or vaahcms more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and vaahcms has 571. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and vaahcms free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and vaahcms under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and vaahcms?
hugo is written in Go and vaahcms 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 vaahcms?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose vaahcms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.