Halo vs Medium
Halo and Medium are both blogging and static sites software. Halo is open source under GPL-3.0, with 40k GitHub stars. Medium is a commercial product from A Medium Corporation.
Which to pick
- Pick Halo when
- You want a WordPress-style site builder with a strong Chinese community and plugin market.
- Pick Medium when
- You want to write and reach readers without running a site, and do not need your own brand or domain.
Side by side
A Java website builder and CMS for blogs, knowledge bases, company sites and small shops, with themes and plugins.
A hosted blogging platform with built-in readership, where writers can earn from a paywall programme.
Documentation and plugins are mostly Chinese, and some plugins and themes are paid.
Medium controls distribution and the paywall, and you build its audience rather than your own.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server
Cloud service and mobile app
Java, Spring Boot, TypeScript and Vue
Not published
Open source, GPL-3.0 (strong copyleft)
Closed source, sold by A Medium Corporation
Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
40k GitHub stars
4.2k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 8 years ago, latest release v2.27.2.
Not known
Other comparisons
More blogging platforms and static site generators
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.