Hugo
gohugoio/hugoReviewed by AI
What it does
Hugo is a static site generator: you write pages as text files, pick a theme, and Hugo builds a finished website made of plain files you can upload to any web host. People use it for blogs, documentation, portfolios and company sites. It has a built-in preview server that shows your changes as you edit. It runs from the command line, so it suits people who are comfortable typing commands and editing configuration files. Ready downloads exist for Windows, Mac and Linux, in a standard and a deploy edition.
How easy it is to install
C · install 1 or 2 tools · Windows
- Windows C
- macOS C
- Linux C
The same on all three: there are ready downloads (hugo_0.169.0_windows-amd64.zip, a .pkg for macOS, .deb and .tar.gz for Linux), but Hugo has no window of its own — you run it with commands in a terminal, and themes are usually added with Git.
Numbers on GitHub
- Stars
- 90,307on Oct 31, 2026
- Downloads
- 102,751,694857,106 this week
- Growth
- +73stars in 6 days
Stars over time
Facts
- Runs on
- Windows, macOS, Linux
- You need to install
- Other tools
- To build from source
- Docker, Go
- Disk space
- 32 MB–95 MB · from the installer
- Accounts or keys
- Google Cloud Storage, AWS S3 or Azure Storage (only for the deploy edition's direct upload)
- Cost
- Free · Apache-2.0 licence. Hosting the finished website is up to you and may cost money.
- License
- Apache-2.0 (Permissive)
- Can replace
- Squarespace, Wix
- Last update
- Oct 30, 2026
Risk signals (1)
- Infotheme needs extra tools
README.md lists asset pipelines for Sass, PostCSS, Tailwind CSS and JavaScript; the project's Dockerfile installs "git", "nodejs", "npm" and a separate "dart-sass" binary, so some themes need those extras on your computer too.
AI review
Evidence is shown in its original language.
What Radar could not check
- Which extra tools your chosen theme needs, such as Git, Dart Sass or Node.
- What hosting the finished site will cost you.
- How well a given third-party theme is maintained.
- Whether the standard edition is enough or you need the deploy edition for your host.