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Open-source blogging platforms and static site generators in 2026

30 open-source projects, ranked by GitHub stars and how recently each was worked on. Hugo leads with 90k stars, ahead of Gatsby. 29 had code pushed in the last three months. Most common licenses: MIT (22), GPL-3.0 (3) and AGPL-3.0 (2). Commercial blogging platforms and static site generators are listed separately.

All open-source blogging platforms and static site generators, ranked

Complete systems you can adopt 5

  1. 1
    Ghost TryGhost

    Independent technology for modern publishing, memberships, subscriptions and newsletters.

    Complete system Production-ready You publish content and want to run paid memberships or newsletters without taking a platform cut.

    ★ 56k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today
  2. 2
    Halo halo-dev

    Halo 是一款强大易用的开源建站工具，从个人博客、知识库，到企业官网、在线商城，Halo 都能助您轻松实现，一站式满足您的多样化建站需求。

    Complete system Production-ready You want a WordPress-style site builder with a strong Chinese community and plugin market.

    ★ 40k GPL-3.0 Java Active, pushed today
  3. 3
    Publii GetPublii

    The most intuitive Static Site CMS designed for SEO-optimized and privacy-focused websites.

    Complete system Production-ready A non-developer wants a fast static blog or small business site without running a server.

    ★ 7.4k GPL-3.0 HTML Active, pushed today
  4. 4
    WriteFreely writefreely

    A clean, Markdown-based publishing platform made for writers. Write together and build a community.

    Complete system Usable You want a distraction-free blog that Mastodon users can follow.

    ★ 5.3k AGPL-3.0 Go Active, pushed yesterday
  5. 5
    Pagescms hunvreus

    The simplest CMS you'll ever need. Manage content and media right in your GitHub repository.

    Complete system Usable Non-developers need to edit a Git-based static site and you want a hosted editor without setting up a backend.

    ★ 4.2k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 18 days ago

Frameworks and platforms to build on 5

  1. 1
    Gatsby gatsbyjs

    React-based framework with performance, scalability, and security built in.

    Framework or platform Production-ready You maintain an existing Gatsby site; new projects are better served by Astro or Next.js.

    ★ 56k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed 13 days ago
  2. 2
    Starlight withastro

    🌟 Build beautiful, accessible, high-performance documentation websites with Astro

    Framework or platform Production-ready You need a fast, good-looking docs site for a product or open-source project with minimal setup.

    ★ 9.5k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today
  3. 3
    Vike vikejs

    (Replaces Next.js/Nuxt) 🔨 Build mission-critical applications with stability and development freedom.

    Framework or platform Usable You want Next.js or Nuxt-style SSR without being locked into their conventions or hosting.

    ★ 5.8k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today
  4. 4
    Nextra shuding

    Simple, powerful and flexible site generation framework with everything you love from Next.js.

    Framework or platform Production-ready Your team already uses Next.js and wants a docs site in the same stack.

    ★ 14k MIT TypeScript Slowing, pushed 3 months ago
  5. 5
    Analog analogjs

    The fullstack meta-framework for Angular. Powered by Vite and Nitro

    Framework or platform Usable Your team works in Angular and wants Next.js-style SSR and static sites.

    ★ 3.2k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today

Building blocks for your own system 2

  1. 1
    Decap CMS decaporg

    A Git-based CMS for Static Site Generators

    Building block Production-ready You have a Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy or similar site and want a free editing UI with content kept in Git.

    ★ 19k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed 2 days ago
  2. 2
    Sveltia CMS sveltia

    Leading Git-based headless CMS. Successor to Netlify/Decap CMS. Modern UX, first-class i18n support, mobile support + numerous improvements. Framework-agnostic, open source & free.

    Building block Usable You run a static site with Decap or Netlify CMS, or want one, and prefer an actively developed drop-in replacement.

    ★ 3k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today

Developer tools 15

  1. 1
    Hugo gohugoio

    The world’s fastest framework for building websites.

    Developer tool Production-ready You want a fast, dependency-free generator for docs, blogs or marketing sites with thousands of pages.

    ★ 90k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed today
  2. 2
    Jekyll jekyll

    :globe_with_meridians: Jekyll is a blog-aware static site generator in Ruby

    Developer tool Production-ready You want a simple blog or project site on GitHub Pages with the widest theme selection.

    ★ 52k MIT Ruby Active, pushed 20 days ago
  3. 3
    Hexo hexojs

    A fast, simple & powerful blog framework, powered by Node.js.

    Developer tool Production-ready You want a blog generator in the JavaScript ecosystem with many ready-made themes.

    ★ 42k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed 7 days ago
  4. 4
    Buildawesome 11ty

    A simpler site generator. Transforms a directory of templates (of varying types) into HTML.

    Developer tool Production-ready You want a flexible, low-JavaScript site generator and prefer configuring things yourself over a framework's conventions.

    ★ 20k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed today
  5. 5
    Zola getzola

    A fast static site generator in a single binary with everything built-in. https://www.getzola.org

    Developer tool Production-ready You want a Hugo-like single-binary generator with simpler templates for a blog or docs site.

    ★ 18k EUPL-1.2 Rust Active, pushed today
  6. 6
    Quarkdown iamgio

    🪐 Markdown with superpowers: from ideas to papers, presentations, websites, books, and knowledge bases.

    Developer tool Usable You write papers, books or presentations and want Markdown with LaTeX-like layout control.

    ★ 16k GPL-3.0 Kotlin Active, pushed yesterday
  7. 7
    Quartz jackyzha0

    🌱 a fast, batteries-included static-site generator that transforms Markdown content into fully functional websites

    Developer tool Production-ready You keep notes in Obsidian and want to publish them as a free digital garden site.

    ★ 14k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed yesterday
  8. 8
    Pelican getpelican

    Static site generator that supports Markdown and reST syntax. Powered by Python.

    Developer tool Production-ready You work in Python and want a mature blog generator you can extend with Python plugins.

    ★ 13k AGPL-3.0 Python Active, pushed 20 days ago
  9. 9
    Middleman middleman

    Hand-crafted frontend development

    Developer tool Usable You maintain an existing Middleman site or work in Ruby and want its conventions.

    ★ 7.1k MIT Ruby Active, pushed today
  10. 10
    Zensical zensical

    A modern static site generator by the Material for MkDocs team

    Developer tool Experimental You run a Material for MkDocs site and want to follow its authors' successor, or start new docs on it.

    ★ 6.1k MIT Rust Active, pushed 3 days ago
  11. 11
    Actions-gh-pages peaceiris

    GitHub Actions for GitHub Pages 🚀 Deploy static files and publish your site easily. Static-Site-Generators-friendly.

    Developer tool Production-ready Your workflow pushes generated sites to a gh-pages branch or an external repo.

    ★ 5.4k MIT TypeScript Active, pushed today
  12. 12
    Docfx dotnet

    Static site generator for .NET API documentation.

    Developer tool Production-ready You publish docs for a .NET library and need API reference generated from the source.

    ★ 4.4k MIT C# Active, pushed today
  13. 13
    Lektor lektor

    The lektor static file content management system

    Developer tool Usable You want a static site with a local editing UI and structured content models, built in Python.

    ★ 3.9k BSD-3-Clause Python Active, pushed 4 days ago
  14. 14
    Dumi umijs

    📖 Static Site Generator for component library development

    Developer tool Production-ready You maintain a React component library, particularly in the Umi or Ant Design ecosystem.

    ★ 3.8k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed 4 days ago
  15. 15
    Nikola getnikola

    A static website and blog generator

    Developer tool Production-ready You want to blog with Jupyter notebooks or reStructuredText in a Python toolchain.

    ★ 2.7k MIT Python Active, pushed 9 days ago

Templates and starters 3

  1. 1
    Beautiful Jekyll daattali

    ✨ Build a beautiful and simple website in literally minutes. Demo at https://beautifuljekyll.com

    Template or starter Production-ready You want a clean personal site or blog live on GitHub Pages in minutes without coding.

    ★ 5.8k MIT HTML Active, pushed 18 days ago
  2. 2
    AstroPaper satnaing

    A minimal, accessible and SEO-friendly Astro blog theme.

    Template or starter Production-ready You want a clean developer blog on Astro to fork and customise.

    ★ 5.2k MIT Astro Active, pushed yesterday
  3. 3
    Hugo-theme-academic-cv HugoBlox

    🎓 Academic portfolio that boosts citations. AI generates pages, you own as Markdown. BibTeX auto-import, Jupyter, LaTeX, slides, visual block editor — free to host forever. 学术主页，AI 生成，Markdown 拥有 👇

    Template or starter Production-ready A researcher wants a free academic homepage listing publications and talks.

    ★ 5.1k MIT Jupyter Notebook Active, pushed 2 days ago

Compared head to head

Medium vs WixSquarespace vs WixGhost vs WixHalo vs WixPublii vs WixMedium vs SquarespaceGhost vs MediumHalo vs MediumMedium vs PubliiGhost vs SquarespaceHalo vs SquarespacePublii vs SquarespaceGhost vs PubliiHalo vs Publii

Looking for an alternative to

MediumSubstackSquarespace

Open-source licenses

  • Permissive: 24. Use it anywhere, including in closed products. You keep the copyright notice; Apache-2.0 also grants patent rights.
  • Strong copyleft: 4. If you distribute the program or anything built on it, you must release the whole source under the same license.
  • Network copyleft: 2. Like GPL, and running a changed version as a web service counts as distributing it, so its users get the source too.

Languages

TypeScript 9, JavaScript 5, Python 3, Go 2, Ruby 2, Rust 2, HTML 2, Java 1, Kotlin 1, Astro 1, Jupyter Notebook 1 and C# 1.

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