head to head · open source
nextra vs htmly
nextra has 13,925 GitHub stars, 1,416 forks, 346 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. htmly has 1,363 stars, 306 forks, 54 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. nextra leads on adoption by 922% (13,925 vs 1,363 stars). nextra is written in TypeScript under MIT; htmly is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. nextra has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, htmly 22%. nextra was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (markdown), 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
| nextra | htmly | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 14K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | MIT | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-07-31 | 2026-01-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.4K | ⑂ 306 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nextra if
- You weight community size — 14K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- 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 nextra
Nextra is a simple, powerful and flexible site generation framework, built on Next.js and written in TypeScript, for developers and teams who want to author documentation or content sites in Markdown and MDX inside a React application.
read the full nextra overview →
About htmly
HTMLy is an open source blogging platform and flat file CMS written in PHP. It serves people who want a blog or simple website without running a database server. The project stores content in files and uses an algorithm to list material by date, type, category, tag, or author. It lives in the PHP web publishing ecosystem.
read the full htmly overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nextra or htmly more popular?
nextra has 13,925 GitHub stars and htmly has 1,363. nextra has the larger community by that measure.
Are nextra and htmly free?
Both are open source. nextra is licensed under MIT and htmly under GPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nextra and htmly?
nextra is written in TypeScript 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, nextra or htmly?
Choose nextra if you want the larger community (13,925 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose htmly if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.