head to head · open source
Strapi vs ponzu
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars, 9,875 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. ponzu has 5,757 stars, 384 forks, 35 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. Strapi leads on adoption by 1,171% (73,184 vs 5,757 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 13% 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Strapi | ponzu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Custom / other | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-11-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.9K | ⑂ 384 |
| 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
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 ponzu
Ponzu is an open source, BSD 3 Clause licensed HTTP server framework and headless CMS written in Go that serves an automatic JSON API and obtains its own TLS certificates from Let's Encrypt, aimed at developers who need a fast content backend for web and mobile apps rather than a page rendering website builder.
read the full ponzu overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Content Management Systems (CMS) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Content Management Systems (CMS) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or ponzu more popular?
Strapi has 73,184 GitHub stars and ponzu has 5,757. 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 (73,184 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.