head to head · open source
tutor vs thelia
tutor has 1,131 GitHub stars, 509 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. thelia has 882 stars, 320 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tutor leads on adoption by 28% (1,131 vs 882 stars). tutor is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; thelia is written in PHP under GPL-3.0. tutor has attracted 45% as many forks as stars, thelia 36%. thelia was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| tutor | thelia | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.1K | ★ 882 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 509 | ⑂ 320 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick tutor if
- You weight community size — 1.1K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick thelia if
- You want the thelia feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and thelia fits your workflow better
About tutor
Tutor: the Docker based Open edX distribution designed for peace of mind ======================================================================== .. image:: :alt: Tutor logo :width: 500px :align: center .. readme intro start: .. image:: :alt: Source code :target: .. image:: :alt: Forums :target: .. image:: :alt: Documentation :target: .. image:: :alt: PyPI releases :target: .. image:: :alt: AGPL License :target: .. image:: :alt: Follow us on Youtube :target: Tutor is the official Docker based Open edX distribution, both for production and local development. The goal of Tutor is to make it easy to deploy…
read the full tutor overview →
About thelia
Thelia This is the development repository of Thelia, the open source e commerce framework. Work on Thelia itself here. To create a shop, use the project skeleton instead: thelia/thelia project. About Thelia is an open source framework for building online stores and managing web content. Version 3 runs on: PHP 8.3, 8.4 or 8.5 Symfony 7.4 LTS API Platform 4.3 (standalone) Propel ORM A Twig front office (the Flexy theme) and a Twig back office (the default twig theme) Lexik JWT for API authentication The back office and front office are built with Twig, Symfony UX (Stimulus, Twig Components and Live Components) and…
read the full thelia overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is tutor or thelia more popular?
tutor has 1,131 GitHub stars and thelia has 882. tutor has the larger community by that measure.
Are tutor and thelia free?
Both are open source. tutor is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and thelia under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between tutor and thelia?
tutor is written in Python and thelia 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, tutor or thelia?
Choose tutor if you want the larger community (1,131 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose thelia if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.