head to head · open source
Strapi vs joomla-cms
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars, 10,050 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. joomla-cms has 5,165 stars, 3,887 forks, 928 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 1,322% (73,425 vs 5,165 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; joomla-cms is written in PHP under GPL-2.0. Strapi has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, joomla-cms 75%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cms, content-management, hacktoberfest), 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
| Strapi | joomla-cms | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 5.2K |
| License | Custom / other | GPL-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 3.9K |
| 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 joomla-cms if
- You want the joomla-cms 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 joomla-cms fits your workflow better
About Strapi
Open source headless CMS, self hosted or Cloud you're in control. The leading open source headless CMS, 100% JavaScript/TypeScript, flexible and fully customizable. Docs · Strapi Cloud · Roadmap · Discord · Discussions Strapi is an open source, self hosted headless CMS that lets developers build content APIs fast while giving content creators a friendly editing interface. Define your content models and Strapi generates a full API, ready to consume from any frontend, mobile app, or IoT device. Design content structures visually with the Content Type Builder , no code required Auto generated REST & GraphQL APIs…
read the full Strapi overview →
About joomla-cms
Joomla! CMS™ ==================== Build Status Overview This is the source of Joomla! 5.x. Joomla's Official website. Joomla! 5.4 version history. Detailed changes are in the changelog. What is Joomla? Joomla! is a Content Management System (CMS) which enables you to build websites and powerful online applications. It is a simple and powerful web server application which requires a server with PHP and either MySQL, MariaDB or PostgreSQL to run. You can find full technical requirements here. Joomla! is free and Open Source software distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Looking for…
read the full joomla-cms overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or joomla-cms more popular?
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars and joomla-cms has 5,165. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and joomla-cms free?
Both are open source. Strapi has no licence declared in this registry, and joomla-cms is licensed under GPL-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and joomla-cms?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and joomla-cms 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 joomla-cms?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,425 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose joomla-cms if its feature set, stack or GPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.