head to head · open source
wagtail vs sanity
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars, 4,676 forks, 1,007 open issues and last shipped yesterday. sanity has 6,383 stars, 558 forks, 221 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wagtail leads on adoption by 223% (20,599 vs 6,383 stars). wagtail is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; sanity is written in TypeScript under MIT. wagtail has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, sanity 9%. sanity 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
| wagtail | sanity | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.7K | ⑂ 558 |
| 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 sanity if
- You want the sanity feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and sanity 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 sanity
Sanity Get Started Docs Website Build powerful production ready content workspaces The Sanity Composable Content Cloud lets teams create remarkable digital experiences at scale. Sanity Studio is an open source, single page application that is fast to set up and quick to configure. The Studio comes with a complete studio customization framework that lets you tailor the workspace as your needs grow. Sanity hosts your content in a real time, hosted data store called Content Lake. Get started with the free plan with generous bandwidth and hosting included and pay as you go for overages. Quickstart Initiate a new…
read the full sanity overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wagtail or sanity more popular?
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars and sanity has 6,383. wagtail has the larger community by that measure.
Are wagtail and sanity free?
Both are open source. wagtail is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and sanity under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wagtail and sanity?
wagtail is written in Python and sanity in TypeScript. 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 sanity?
Choose wagtail if you want the larger community (20,599 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose sanity if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.