WriteFreely
Writing software for starting a minimalist, federated blog — or an entire community.
Description from awesome-selfhosted (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Still maintained? Yes: 64 commits in the last 90 days, latest release v0.17.2 (Aug 2026).
Also an alternative to WordPress.com.
At a glance
WriteFreely quick facts
- Health score
- 85/100 GOOD
- Stars
- 5,281
- Last commit
- 4 days ago (Oct 2026)
- Latest release
- v0.17.2, Aug 2026
- Licence
- AGPL-3.0
Top alternatives to WriteFreely
Full rankings: WordPress.com alternatives
In its own words
The project's README opens: "WriteFreely is a clean, minimalist publishing platform made for writers. Start a blog, share knowledge within your organization, or build a community around the shared act of writing."
Why it ranks here
Health score explained
WriteFreely scores 85/100, #4 of 15 in Blogging Platforms: 64 commits in the last 90 days earn 35.0 of 35 points, the latest release (v0.17.2, 3 months ago) earns 25.0 of 25, 5,281 stars add 14.9 of 20, an active, unarchived repository keeps 10 and no advertised Docker image leaves the final 10 unclaimed. That places it in the good band (70 and above). The biggest shortfall is Docker support, worth 10.0 more points.
Recomputed nightly from the GitHub API. How the score is calculated.
- Commit activity 35.0 / 35
64 commits in 90 days (30+ scores full marks)
- Release recency 25.0 / 25
v0.17.2 released 3 months ago
- Stars 14.9 / 20
5.3k stars on GitHub (logarithmic)
- Not archived 10.0 / 10
Repository is active
- Docker support biggest shortfall 0.0 / 10
No Docker support advertised
Commit activity
- 64
- Last 90 days
- 210
- Last 12 months
- 4 days ago
- Last push
Ranked #4 of 15 tools in Blogging Platforms by health , between Ghost (#3) and FlatPress (#5) .
Details
| Licence | AGPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Go |
| Latest release | v0.17.2 · 3 months ago |
| Stars | 5,281 |
| Open issues | 80 |
| Docker | Not advertised |
| Repository | writefreely/writefreely ↗ |
WriteFreely vs its top 5 alternatives
Active tools that share a comparison page or a category with WriteFreely (Blogging Platforms), scored on the same five terms.
WriteFreely: common questions
What does WriteFreely replace?
Repoly lists WriteFreely as an open-source alternative to WordPress.com. Each comparison page ranks every alternative by the same health score, so you can see where WriteFreely stands against the others.
Is WriteFreely still maintained?
WriteFreely had 64 commits in the last 90 days and its last push was 4 days ago; the latest tagged release, v0.17.2, is from 3 months ago. Repoly recomputes this nightly.