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Hugo vs Starlight: catalog facts
Hugo	Starlight
Free Free and open source under Apache 2.0.	Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Builds large sites in seconds, with near-instant live reload while writing A single binary with no Node or Ruby runtime to keep working	Search, navigation and i18n included Markdown, Markdoc and MDX support
Go templates are the steepest part of the learning curve You need the extended build for Sass, and picking the wrong one causes confusing errors	Focused on documentation sites only Requires Node.js and some Astro knowledge to customise
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: Apache-2.0	License: MIT
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 21, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 2, 2026

Catalog facts only. Anything “not stated” is unconfirmed. Check full listings for details.