head to head · open source
hugo vs wondercms
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars, 8,447 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wondercms has 741 stars, 169 forks, 16 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 12,090% (90,326 vs 741 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; wondercms is written in PHP under MIT. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, wondercms 23%. 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 | wondercms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 741 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 169 |
| 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 wondercms if
- You want the wondercms feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and wondercms 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 wondercms
WonderCMS small flat file CMS 5 files • ∼50KB zip 1 step install WonderCMS is an extremely small flat file CMS. It's fast, responsive and doesn't require any configuration . It provides a simple way for creating and editing websites. Includes features such as: 1 step install , 1 click updates , 1 click backups , theme/plugin installer and much more. Demo • Download • Community • News • Donate • Buy merch Small and simple flat file CMS No configuration needed unzip and upload. 5 files: database.js (JSON format), index.php, theme.php, style.css and htaccess. Transferring your website to a new host/server is done…
read the full wondercms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or wondercms more popular?
hugo has 90,326 GitHub stars and wondercms has 741. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and wondercms free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wondercms under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and wondercms?
hugo is written in Go and wondercms 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 wondercms?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (90,326 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wondercms if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.