head to head · open source
Strapi vs ponzu
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars, 10,050 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ponzu has 5,759 stars, 383 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. Strapi leads on adoption by 1,175% (73,425 vs 5,759 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; ponzu is written in Go under BSD-3-Clause. Strapi has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, ponzu 7%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (api, 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
| Strapi | ponzu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 383 |
| 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 ponzu if
- You want the ponzu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and ponzu 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 ponzu
[!WARNING] This project is currently abandoned, if you're looking for an open source HTTP Server with built in SSL/TLS support, feel free to try out Caddy Server. a project [!NOTE] If you're interested in regularly contributing to Ponzu CMS (with monetary compensation included) feel free to reach out to us at support@zerossl.com Ponzu Watch the video introduction Ponzu is a powerful and efficient open source HTTP server framework and CMS. It provides automatic, free, and secure HTTP/2 over TLS (certificates obtained via Let's Encrypt), a useful CMS and scaffolding to generate content editors, and a fast HTTP API…
read the full ponzu overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or ponzu more popular?
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars and ponzu has 5,759. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and ponzu free?
Both are open source. Strapi has no licence declared in this registry, and ponzu is licensed under BSD-3-Clause. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and ponzu?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and ponzu in Go. 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 ponzu?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,425 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose ponzu if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.