Open-source alternatives to Medium
The most popular self-hosted, open-source alternatives to Medium (blogging and publishing) are Ghost (55,563 GitHub stars), WriteFreely (5,273 GitHub stars) and Ech0 (2,074 GitHub stars). SelfHostHub lists 12 options below, taken from its Blogging Platforms category; 2 support Docker and all of them can run on your own server.
Comparison of self-hosted Medium alternatives
| Project | GitHub stars | Licence | Language / platform | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ghost | 55,563 | MIT | Nodejs | Just a blogging platform. |
| WriteFreely | 5,273 | AGPL-3.0 | Go | Writing software for starting a minimalist, federated blog — or an entire community. |
| Ech0 | 2,074 | AGPL-3.0 | Docker, K8S | Lightweight federated publishing platform focused on personal idea sharing (documentation in Chinese). |
| HTMLy | 1,364 | GPL-2.0 | PHP | Databaseless PHP blogging platform. A flat-file CMS that allows you to create a fast, secure, and powerful website or blog in seconds. |
| Known | 1,126 | Apache-2.0 | PHP | Collaborative social publishing platform. |
| Haven | 811 | MIT | Ruby | Private blogging system with markdown editing and built in RSS reader. |
| Chyrp Lite | 496 | BSD-3-Clause | PHP | Extra-awesome, extra-lightweight blog engine. |
| Mataroa | 371 | MIT | Python | Naked blogging platform for minimalists. |
| bloglite | 328 | MIT | Docker | Micro-blog tool offering built-in syntax highlighting, mobile publishing and more (alternative to Twitter, Bluesky). |
| PluXml | 233 | GPL-3.0 | PHP | XML-based blog/CMS platform. |
| Serendipity | 228 | BSD-3-Clause | PHP | Serendipity (s9y) is a highly extensible and customizable PHP blog engine using Smarty templating. |
| FlatPress | 216 | GPL-2.0 | PHP | A lightweight, easy-to-set-up flat-file blogging engine. |
Star counts and licences come from the awesome-selfhosted dataset and may lag GitHub slightly.
Browse the full categories
Frequently asked questions
What is the best open-source alternative to Medium?
By GitHub stars, Ghost is the most popular self-hosted alternative to Medium listed here, followed by WriteFreely and Ech0. The best fit depends on the features and stack you need.
Is there a free self-hosted alternative to Medium?
Yes. All 12 projects on this page are open source and can be self-hosted at no licence cost; you pay only for your own server.
Which licences do these Medium alternatives use?
The most common licences among them are MIT (4), AGPL-3.0 (2) and GPL-2.0 (2).
Can I run a Medium alternative with Docker?
2 of the 12 alternatives list Docker as a supported platform.