head to head · open source
next.js vs lektor
next.js has 143,474 GitHub stars, 33,621 forks, 3,358 open issues and last shipped yesterday. lektor has 3,949 stars, 320 forks, 251 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. next.js leads on adoption by 3,533% (143,474 vs 3,949 stars). next.js is written in JavaScript under MIT; lektor is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. next.js has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, lektor 8%. next.js was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (static-site-generator), 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
| next.js | lektor | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 143K | ★ 3.9K |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 34K | ⑂ 320 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick next.js if
- You weight community size — 143K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick lektor if
- You want the lektor feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and lektor fits your workflow better
About next.js
Next.js Getting Started Used by some of the world's largest companies, Next.js enables you to create full stack web applications by extending the latest React features, and integrating powerful Rust based JavaScript tooling for the fastest builds. Visit our Learn Next.js course to get started with Next.js. Visit the Next.js Showcase to see more sites built with Next.js. Documentation Visit to view the full documentation. Community The Next.js community can be found on GitHub Discussions where you can ask questions, voice ideas, and share your projects with other people. To chat with other community members, you…
read the full next.js overview →
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 →
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Frequently asked questions
Is next.js or lektor more popular?
next.js has 143,474 GitHub stars and lektor has 3,949. next.js has the larger community by that measure.
Are next.js and lektor free?
Both are open source. next.js is licensed under MIT and lektor under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between next.js and lektor?
next.js is written in JavaScript and lektor in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, next.js or lektor?
Choose next.js if you want the larger community (143,474 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose lektor if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.