head to head · open source
Strapi vs sulu
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars, 10,050 forks, 558 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sulu has 1,364 stars, 372 forks, 593 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Strapi leads on adoption by 5,283% (73,425 vs 1,364 stars). Strapi is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; sulu is written in PHP under MIT. Strapi has attracted 14% as many forks as stars, sulu 27%. Strapi was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cms, 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 | sulu | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 73K | ★ 1.4K |
| License | Custom / other | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 372 |
| 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 sulu if
- You want the sulu feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and sulu 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 sulu
Sulu is a highly extensible open source PHP content management system based on the Symfony framework. Sulu is developed to deliver robust multi lingual and multi portal websites while providing an intuitive and extensible administration interface to manage the full content lifecycle. Have a look at the official Sulu website for a comprehensive list of Sulu's features, core values and use cases. This repository contains the core framework of the Sulu content management system . The framework implements the functionality that is built into the Sulu content management system and therefore is a dependency of all…
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Frequently asked questions
Is Strapi or sulu more popular?
Strapi has 73,425 GitHub stars and sulu has 1,364. Strapi has the larger community by that measure.
Are Strapi and sulu free?
Both are open source. Strapi has no licence declared in this registry, and sulu is licensed under MIT. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Strapi and sulu?
Strapi is written in TypeScript and sulu 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 sulu?
Choose Strapi if you want the larger community (73,425 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose sulu if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.