head to head · open source
hugo vs winter
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. winter has 1,523 stars, 250 forks, 124 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 5,831% (90,326 vs 1,523 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; winter is written in PHP under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, winter 16%. winter 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| hugo | winter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 250 |
| 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 winter if
- You want the winter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and winter 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 winter
Winter is a free, open source content management system based on the Laravel PHP framework. Developers and agencies all around the world rely upon Winter for its quick prototyping and development, safe and secure codebase and dedication to simplicity. No matter how large or small your project is, Winter provides a rich development environment, regardless of your level of experience. Installing Winter Winter can be installed in several ways for both new users and experienced developers see our Installation page for more information. Quick start with Composer For advanced users, run the following command in your…
read the full winter overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Content Management Systems (CMS) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Content Management Systems (CMS) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or winter more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and winter has 1,523. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and winter free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and winter under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and winter?
hugo is written in Go and winter 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 winter?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose winter if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.