head to head · open source
Payload vs piranha.core
Payload has 44,806 GitHub stars, 4,166 forks, 1,127 open issues and last shipped yesterday. piranha.core has 2,193 stars, 612 forks, 100 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. Payload leads on adoption by 1,943% (44,806 vs 2,193 stars). Payload is written in TypeScript under MIT; piranha.core is written in C# under MIT. Payload has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, piranha.core 28%. Payload 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
| Payload | piranha.core | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 45K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 612 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Payload if
- You weight community size — 45K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick piranha.core if
- You want the piranha.core feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and piranha.core fits your workflow better
About Payload
Payload is an open source, MIT licensed headless CMS and fullstack framework, written in TypeScript and built to run natively inside a Next.js /app folder, aimed at developers who want a TypeScript backend and admin panel without signing up for another SaaS.
read the full Payload overview →
About piranha.core
Welcome to Piranha.Core About Piranha CMS is a decoupled, cross platform CMS built for .NET8 and Entity Framework Core . It has a modular and extensible architecture and supports a multitude of hosting and deployment scenarios. Getting started Prerequisites .NET 8.0 SDK An IDE or Editor of your choice Create a new project from our templates To use our project templates you first need to download and install them from NuGet. This can be done with: bash dotnet new install Piranha.Templates When creating a new project with dotnet new you should first create a new empty folder. The default behaviour is that the new p…
read the full piranha.core overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Payload or piranha.core more popular?
Payload has 44,806 GitHub stars and piranha.core has 2,193. Payload has the larger community by that measure.
Are Payload and piranha.core free?
Both are open source. Payload is licensed under MIT and piranha.core under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Payload and piranha.core?
Payload is written in TypeScript and piranha.core in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Payload or piranha.core?
Choose Payload if you want the larger community (44,806 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose piranha.core if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.