head to head · open source
KeystoneJS vs ProcessWire
KeystoneJS has 9,986 GitHub stars, 1,262 forks, 138 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ProcessWire has 1,159 stars, 210 forks, 93 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. KeystoneJS leads on adoption by 762% (9,986 vs 1,159 stars). KeystoneJS is written in TypeScript under MIT; ProcessWire is written in PHP under a custom or non-standard licence. KeystoneJS has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, ProcessWire 18%. KeystoneJS 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
| KeystoneJS | ProcessWire | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 10.0K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.3K | ⑂ 210 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick KeystoneJS if
- You weight community size — 10.0K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ProcessWire if
- You want the ProcessWire feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and ProcessWire fits your workflow better
About KeystoneJS
Keystone helps you build faster and scale further than any other CMS or App Framework. Describe your schema, and get a powerful GraphQL API & beautiful Management UI for your content and data. No boilerplate or bootstrapping – just elegant APIs to help you ship the code that matters without sacrificing the flexibility or power of a bespoke back end. Contents Usage & Documentation Versioning Code of Conduct Security License Usage & Documentation Keystone 6 is published to npm under the @keystone 6/ namespace. You can find our extended documentation on our website, but some quick links that might be helpful: Read…
read the full KeystoneJS overview →
About ProcessWire
Welcome to ProcessWire 3.x This document is in Markdown. An HTML formatted version of this document can be read at: Table of Contents 1. About 2. Installation 3. Upgrading 4. Troubleshooting 5. Support About ProcessWire ProcessWire is a friendly and powerful open source CMS with an API that is a joy to use at any scale. It is both a content management system (CMS) and framework (CMF) built to save you time and work the way you do. With all custom fields, a secure foundation, proven scalability and performance, ProcessWire connects all of your content seamlessly, making your job fast, easy and fun. ProcessWire…
read the full ProcessWire overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is KeystoneJS or ProcessWire more popular?
KeystoneJS has 9,986 GitHub stars and ProcessWire has 1,159. KeystoneJS has the larger community by that measure.
Are KeystoneJS and ProcessWire free?
Both are open source. KeystoneJS is licensed under MIT, and ProcessWire has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between KeystoneJS and ProcessWire?
KeystoneJS is written in TypeScript and ProcessWire 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, KeystoneJS or ProcessWire?
Choose KeystoneJS if you want the larger community (9,986 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose ProcessWire if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.