head to head · open source
tutor vs thelia
tutor has 1,126 GitHub stars, 510 forks, 55 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. thelia has 879 stars, 319 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped yesterday. tutor leads on adoption by 28% (1,126 vs 879 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 | ★ 879 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 510 | ⑂ 319 |
| 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 is the official Docker based distribution of Open edX, built for both production deployments and local development. It lives in the Open edX ecosystem, written in Python and licensed under the AGPL 3.0, and it carries the stated goal of making Open edX easy to deploy, customise, upgrade and scale. The project packages the platform as a set of Docker images managed through Docker Compose, with support for Kubernetes, plugins and a hosted AWS image.
read the full tutor overview →
About thelia
Thelia is an open source e commerce CMS and framework built on Symfony 7 and API Platform, for PHP teams that want to own and extend their storefront, back office and API instead of renting a hosted platform.
read the full thelia overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is tutor or thelia more popular?
tutor has 1,126 GitHub stars and thelia has 879. 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 (1,126 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.