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Hugo vs Drupal

Security & risk comparison · Updated October 2026

How does Hugo compare to Drupal on security, AI-readiness, and total cost of ownership? We scored both across 7 dimensions using NVD/NIST CVE data, GitHub metrics, and our census of the Tranco top 100,000.

Key finding

Hugo scores 75/100 overall versus Drupal's 41/100. Hugo has 5 total CVEs compared to Drupal's 1200, giving it a smaller vulnerability surface. (Source: WebPulse framework scoring, NIST NVD and CISA KEV, updated October 2026)

Who actually runs Hugo and Drupal

Share of sites with an identified platform, from WebPulse's scan of the Tranco top 100,000 and our Common Crawl census.

WhereHugoDrupal
Top 1,000 1.9% (4) 4.2% (9)
Top 10,000 1.1% (29) 7.5% (192)
Top 100,000 0.6% (164) 7.2% (1,994)
Wider web0.2%4.4%

Highest-ranked sites on Hugo

  1. ntp.org#71
  2. doi.org#215
  3. brave.com#423
  4. verisign.com#672
  5. letsencrypt.org#1,144

Highest-ranked sites on Drupal

  1. europa.eu#114
  2. nist.gov#239
  3. un.org#363
  4. noaa.gov#530
  5. unesco.org#627

Detected from each homepage's HTML, headers and cookies in September 2026. Methodology

75
Hugo
Modern · GO
vs
41
Drupal
Legacy · PHP
Dimension-by-dimension breakdown
security Hugo
92
35
Hugo
Drupal
performance Tie
65
65
Hugo
Drupal
ecosystem Hugo
65
40
Hugo
Drupal
ai readiness Hugo
88
40
Hugo
Drupal
developer experience Hugo
70
40
Hugo
Drupal
market trajectory Tie
35
35
Hugo
Drupal
cost of ownership Hugo
90
35
Hugo
Drupal
Security details
Metric Hugo Drupal
Total CVEs 5 1200
Critical CVEs 0 89
Exploited (KEV) 0 8
CVEs last year 1 120
Avg CVSS 3.0 6.5
Security score 92/100 35/100
Recommended
Hugo

Hugo scores 75/100. Verdict: Recommended.

Caution
Drupal

Drupal scores 42/100. Consider migrating to: nextjs, django, laravel.

Alternatives: nextjs, django, laravel

Quick facts
Hugo
Category: Ssg
Language: GO
First release: 2013
Generation: Modern
Trend: Rising
Market share: 0.1%
Drupal
Category: Cms
Language: PHP
First release: 2001
Generation: Legacy
Trend: Stable
Market share: 1.5%
Related briefings
Hugo v0.168.0: Go 1.27.2 security fixes, theme limits
October 14, 2026
Hugo update fixes ways an untrusted theme could pull files into a site
September 29, 2026
Zero-CVE Frameworks Gain Share: Hugo, Astro, HTMX
July 3, 2026
PHP CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619: what to do
October 21, 2026
Drupal CVE-2026-108097, CVE-2026-108099 RCE patches
October 18, 2026
Drupal SA-CORE-2026-014: Field UI remote code execution
October 14, 2026
More comparisons
Hugo vs WordPress Hugo vs Next.js Hugo vs React Hugo vs Angular Hugo vs Django Hugo vs Laravel Hugo vs Vue.js Hugo vs Astro Hugo vs SvelteKit Hugo vs Rails Drupal vs WordPress Drupal vs Next.js Drupal vs React Drupal vs Angular Drupal vs Django Drupal vs Laravel Drupal vs Vue.js Drupal vs Astro Drupal vs SvelteKit Drupal vs Rails

Data sourced from NVD/NIST CVE database, GitHub API, and WebPulse framework scanner. Scores calculated using a 7-dimension model covering security, performance, ecosystem health, AI-readiness, developer experience, market trajectory, and cost of ownership. Updated October 2026.