← Back to home
Comparison · Collab

HumHub vs tufte

A side-by-side editorial comparison of HumHub and tufte — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.

HumHub vs tufte: at a glance

FeatureHumHubtufte
SectorCollabCollab
Velocity score5.00.0
Sparks · 30d00
Top themessocial intranet, beta releases, upgrade migrations, permissionsr-markdown, typesetting, bookdown, pandoc-compat
Last editorial update2h ago6d ago
WebsiteVisit →Visit →

What is HumHub?

HumHub's public feed carries only betas, and 1.19's is still about surviving the upgrade.

The four releases visible here are all pre-release: 1.19.0-beta.2 and beta.1, and 1.18.0-beta.6 and beta.5 before them. The 1.19 line is dominated by upgrade-path and data-integrity repair — a foreign key violation aborting the comment content_id migration on databases with orphaned rows, fatal errors when purging content whose underlying record was gone, and in beta.2 a fatal SCSS build loop left behind when the 1.19 move of static/themes into protected/humhub stranded an empty theme skeleton. Beta.2 also fixes a real leak: activities from private spaces appearing in the summary mail and dashboard of users holding only a pending invite or join request.

Read the full HumHub trajectory →

What is tufte?

After three quiet years, tufte 0.15 finally lets Tufte-style documents cross-reference.

Almost every release before the latest is a Pandoc compatibility fix — sidenotes breaking on Pandoc 2.15, margin references misplaced on 2.11, table and citation handling in `tufte_handout()`, `--wrap preserve` for margin content on 2.19. Then 0.15.0 in May 2026 breaks the pattern: `tufte_handout2()`, `tufte_book2()` and `tufte_html2()` wrap the corresponding bookdown formats, enabling text references and cross-references in captions, and `margin_fig_pos` gives global control over margin-figure placement.

Read the full tufte trajectory →

HumHub vs tufte: editorial side-by-side

H
HumHub
COLLAB
5.0

HumHub's public feed carries only betas, and 1.19's is still about surviving the upgrade.

◆ Current state

The four releases visible here are all pre-release: 1.19.0-beta.2 and beta.1, and 1.18.0-beta.6 and beta.5 before them. The 1.19 line is dominated by upgrade-path and data-integrity repair — a foreign key violation aborting the comment content_id migration on databases with orphaned rows, fatal errors when purging content whose underlying record was gone, and in beta.2 a fatal SCSS build loop left behind when the 1.19 move of static/themes into protected/humhub stranded an empty theme skeleton. Beta.2 also fixes a real leak: activities from private spaces appearing in the summary mail and dashboard of users holding only a pending invite or join request.

◆ Where it's heading

The 1.19 cycle is being spent making the migration survivable on real installations rather than adding capability, which is the usual shape when a schema and directory-layout change meets databases and webroots that have accumulated years of drift. Beta.2 extends that into the installer itself, where an unreachable database was offering to re-set-up a live instance during a transient outage. The permission and visibility fixes point the same way: tightening authorisation and content boundaries is cleanup of an existing model, not an extension of it.

◆ Prediction

Only beta tags appear in this feed, so a 1.19.0 stable is the obvious next milestone, but nothing here dates it. The beta.1-to-beta.2 gap of about a month is a faster rhythm than the roughly six months between the 1.18 and 1.19 betas.

T
tufte
COLLAB
0.0

After three quiet years, tufte 0.15 finally lets Tufte-style documents cross-reference.

◆ Current state

Almost every release before the latest is a Pandoc compatibility fix — sidenotes breaking on Pandoc 2.15, margin references misplaced on 2.11, table and citation handling in `tufte_handout()`, `--wrap preserve` for margin content on 2.19. Then 0.15.0 in May 2026 breaks the pattern: `tufte_handout2()`, `tufte_book2()` and `tufte_html2()` wrap the corresponding bookdown formats, enabling text references and cross-references in captions, and `margin_fig_pos` gives global control over margin-figure placement.

◆ Where it's heading

The package spent years absorbing upstream Pandoc churn without adding anything, and has now moved to sit on top of bookdown rather than reimplement around it. That is the sustainable direction for a format package this small: inherit cross-referencing and text references instead of maintaining a parallel implementation. Release intervals remain long, so this is unlikely to become a fast-moving package.

◆ Prediction

Expect the bookdown-backed formats to absorb further fixes as the recommended path, with the plain `tufte_*()` formats staying frozen against Pandoc changes.

Alternatives to HumHub and tufte

Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either HumHub or tufte.

See all HumHub alternatives → · See all tufte alternatives →

Recent activity from HumHub and tufte

Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.

  1. 14h agoHumHubPrivate-space activity leak, installer 503 handling and the stranded theme skeleton
  2. 29d agoHumHub1.19 upgrade migration and orphaned content fixes
  3. 2mo agotuftetufte 0.15.0
  4. 7mo agoHumHubLogin screen, theming and validator fixes
  5. 9mo agoHumHubGroup manager options and assorted UI fixes
  6. 3y agotuftetufte 0.13 fixes margin content on Pandoc 2.19
  7. 4y agotuftetufte 0.12 restores sidenotes on Pandoc 2.15
  8. 4y agotuftetufte 0.11 fixes tables and citations in handouts
  9. 5y agotuftetufte 0.10 fixes margin references with link-citations
  10. 5y agotuftetufte 0.9 adds CSLReferences for Pandoc 2.11 citeproc

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between HumHub and tufte?

They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. HumHub is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.

Is HumHub better than tufte?

Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. HumHub is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 5.0 vs 0.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.

What are the best alternatives to HumHub?

Top HumHub alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "HumHub alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/humhub for the full list with editorial commentary on each.

What are the best alternatives to tufte?

Top tufte alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "tufte alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/tufte-r for the full list with editorial commentary on each.