Compare / Hugo vs Zola
Hugo vs Zola
Pick Hugo if you want the common Apache generator (the published GitHub Pages / Cloudflare Pages stack). Pick Zola if you want that Rust binary.
Facts checked 24 Oct 2026. License, language, and GitHub activity come from the catalog or the project's own repo. "Not in the catalog row" means the public catalog dump does not store that number.
Hugo in the catalog Zola in the catalog Start on Railway
How they compare
| Hugo | Zola | |
|---|---|---|
| License | Apache-2.0 (catalog) source | EUPL-1.2 (catalog) source |
| Language | Go (catalog) | Rust (catalog) |
| GitHub activity | 90,219 stars in the catalog source | 17,551 stars in the catalog source |
| Self-host | Published as /stacks/hugo-static. Build, then serve files. | Same stack. Single Rust binary generator. |
| Best for | The published GitHub Pages replacement. | A Rust generator if Hugo is not the shape. |
Self-hosting and resource needs
Both sit on /stacks/hugo-static. Hugo is gohugoio/hugo. Zola is getzola/zola. Serve the output with Caddy (already in the catalog). Ghost is a CMS, not static files — /replace/medium. Forgejo is the git host — /replace/github. Cloudflare Workers stay on /replace/cloudflare-workers. Neither has a one-click c17 Railway template.
FAQ
- GitHub Pages or Cloudflare Pages?
- Same published generator stack — /replace/github-pages and /replace/cloudflare-pages. Workers stay behind.
- Is this Ghost?
- No. Ghost is a CMS — /replace/medium. This pair is static files.
- Are these free?
- Hugo is Apache-2.0. Zola is EUPL-1.2. You pay hosting.
- How do I deploy Hugo?
- Open /stacks/hugo-static. Build the site. Serve public/ with Caddy.
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