head to head · open source
wagtail vs frappe
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars, 4,676 forks, 1,007 open issues and last shipped yesterday. frappe has 11,046 stars, 5,503 forks, 2,003 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wagtail leads on adoption by 86% (20,599 vs 11,046 stars). wagtail is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; frappe is written in Python under MIT. wagtail has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, frappe 50%. frappe was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (cms, python), 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
| wagtail | frappe | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 11K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.7K | ⑂ 5.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wagtail if
- You weight community size — 21K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick frappe if
- You want the frappe feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and frappe fits your workflow better
About wagtail
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django, with a strong community and commercial support. It's focused on user experience, and offers precise control for designers and developers. 🔥 Features A fast, attractive interface for authors Complete control over front end design and structure Scales to millions of pages and thousands of editors Fast out of the box, cache friendly when you need it Content API for 'headless' sites with decoupled front end Runs on a Raspberry Pi or a multi datacenter cloud platform StreamField encourages flexible content without compromising structure Powerful…
read the full wagtail overview →
About frappe
Frappe Framework Low Code Web Framework For Real World Applications, In Python And JavaScript Website Documentation Frappe Framework Full stack web application framework that uses Python and MariaDB on the server side and a tightly integrated client side library. Built for ERPNext. Philosophy The best code is the one that is not written Started in 2005, Frappe Framework was inspired by the Semantic Web. The "big idea" behind semantic web was of a framework that not only described how information is shown (like headings, body etc), but also what it means, like name, address etc. By creating a web framework that…
read the full frappe overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wagtail or frappe more popular?
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars and frappe has 11,046. wagtail has the larger community by that measure.
Are wagtail and frappe free?
Both are open source. wagtail is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and frappe under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wagtail and frappe?
wagtail is written in Python and frappe in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wagtail or frappe?
Choose wagtail if you want the larger community (20,599 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose frappe if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.