head to head · open source
wagtail vs TinaCMS
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars, 4,676 forks, 1,007 open issues and last shipped yesterday. TinaCMS has 13,862 stars, 772 forks, 444 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wagtail leads on adoption by 49% (20,599 vs 13,862 stars). wagtail is written in Python under BSD-3-Clause; TinaCMS is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. wagtail has attracted 23% as many forks as stars, TinaCMS 6%. 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
| wagtail | TinaCMS | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 14K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Python | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.7K | ⑂ 772 |
| 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 TinaCMS if
- You want the TinaCMS feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and TinaCMS 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 TinaCMS
Tina is a headless content management system with support for Markdown , MDX, JSON, YAML, and more. It comes with a GraphQL API: Query your Markdown content like this 👉 post.author.firstName Supports statically generated and server side rendered pages Supports references between documents Tina offers a live preview (optional and opt in) that makes editing Markdown files very intuitive for less technical people. Getting Started Test a TinaCMS starter site locally Or try a demo site on TinaCloud. Documentation Visit Tina's documentation to learn more. Questions? Visit the GitHub Discussions or our Community…
read the full TinaCMS overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wagtail or TinaCMS more popular?
wagtail has 20,599 GitHub stars and TinaCMS has 13,862. wagtail has the larger community by that measure.
Are wagtail and TinaCMS free?
Both are open source. wagtail is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and TinaCMS under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wagtail and TinaCMS?
wagtail is written in Python and TinaCMS 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 TinaCMS?
Choose wagtail if you want the larger community (20,599 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose TinaCMS if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.