head to head · open source
lektor vs htmly
lektor has 3,950 GitHub stars, 320 forks, 251 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. htmly has 1,368 stars, 306 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 9 months ago. lektor leads on adoption by 189% (3,950 vs 1,368 stars). lektor is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; htmly is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. lektor has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, htmly 22%. lektor 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
| lektor | htmly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.0K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-30 | 2026-01-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 320 | ⑂ 306 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick lektor if
- You weight community size — 4.0K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick htmly if
- You want the htmly feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and htmly fits your workflow better
About lektor
Lektor [![CI/CD Badge]][CI/CD] [CI/CD Badge]: [CI/CD]: Lektor is a static website generator. It builds out an entire project from static files into many individual HTML pages and has a built in admin UI and minimal desktop app. To see how it works look at the top level example/ folder, which contains a showcase of the wide variety of Lektor's features. For a more complete example look at the lektor/lektor website repository, which contains the source code for the official Lektor website. How do I use this? For installation instructions head to the official documentation: Installation Quickstart Want to develop…
read the full lektor overview →
About htmly
HTMLy is an open source databaseless blogging platform prioritizes simplicity and speed written in PHP. It uses a unique algorithm to find or list any content based on date, type, category, tag, or author, and it's performance remain fast even if we have ten thousand of posts and hundreds of tags. Requirements HTMLy requires PHP 7.2 or greater, PHP Mbstring, PHP XML, PHP INTL, PHP GD, and PHP ZIP package for backup feature. Installations Install HTMLy using the source code: 1. Download the latest version from the Github repo 2. Upload and extract the zip file to your web server. You can upload it in the root…
read the full htmly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is lektor or htmly more popular?
lektor has 3,950 GitHub stars and htmly has 1,368. lektor has the larger community by that measure.
Are lektor and htmly free?
Both are open source. lektor is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and htmly under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between lektor and htmly?
lektor is written in Python and htmly 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, lektor or htmly?
Choose lektor if you want the larger community (3,950 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose htmly if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.