head to head · open source
Strapi vs Drupal
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars, 9,875 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Drupal has 4,284 stars, 1,986 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 1,608% (73,184 vs 4,284 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; Drupal is written in PHP under a licence not recorded in this registry. Strapi has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Drupal 46%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| Strapi | Drupal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | Custom / other | Custom / other |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 2.0K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Strapi if
- You weight community size — 73K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Drupal if
- You want the Drupal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Drupal fits your workflow better
About Strapi
Strapi is an open source headless content management system built entirely in JavaScript and TypeScript. It provides a customizable admin dashboard and automatically generates REST and GraphQL APIs for any content structure defined through its visual Content Type Builder. Strapi lives in the JavaScript ecosystem and targets developers who need to deliver content to diverse frontends—including web, mobile, and IoT applications—without being locked into a specific presentation layer.
read the full Strapi overview →
About Drupal
Drupal is an open source content management platform written in PHP, built to support websites that range from personal weblogs to large community driven websites. It lives in the Content & Publishing ecosystem, specifically in the Content Management Systems category, and has been developed by an international community on Drupal.org since 2001. The project is published under a license that ships inside the source tree at /core/LICENSE.txt , and the homepage for the distribution is at https://drupal.org/project/drupal.
read the full Drupal overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or Drupal more popular?
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars and Drupal has 4,284. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and Drupal free?
Neither Strapi nor Drupal declares a licence in this registry, so check each project's own repository before relying on either for a commercial use. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and Drupal?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and Drupal 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, Strapi or Drupal?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,184 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose Drupal if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.