head to head · open source
hugo vs wagtail
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars, 8,381 forks, 235 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wagtail has 20,503 stars, 4,608 forks, 1,007 open issues and last shipped yesterday. hugo leads on adoption by 338% (89,854 vs 20,503 stars). hugo is written in Go under Apache-2.0; wagtail is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause. hugo has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, wagtail 22%. wagtail 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
| hugo | wagtail | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 90K | ★ 21K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 8.4K | ⑂ 4.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick hugo if
- You weight community size — 90K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick wagtail if
- You want the wagtail feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and wagtail fits your workflow better
About hugo
Hugo is a static site generator written in Go that renders a complete site in seconds, often less, and it is aimed at developers, technical writers, and content teams who build blogs, documentation sites, portfolios, landing pages, and corporate sites as static files.
About wagtail
Wagtail is an open source content management system built on Django, for developers, designers and editors who need a fast authoring interface alongside precise control over front end design and content structure.
read the full wagtail overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is hugo or wagtail more popular?
hugo has 89,854 GitHub stars and wagtail has 20,503. hugo has the larger community by that measure.
Are hugo and wagtail free?
Both are open source. hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and wagtail under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between hugo and wagtail?
hugo is written in Go and wagtail 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, hugo or wagtail?
Choose hugo if you want the larger community (89,854 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose wagtail if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.