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Top Static Site Generators of 2017

67 points by gk1 9y ago

arikr 9y ago
Strong vote for Hugo. Discovered it via HN a month or two ago, very happy with it. Very responsive dev community both for the core project and for themes.
- rurban 9y ago
  I also checked out a few dozen and decided on Hugo with the Minos theme. The easiest to use.
yodon 9y ago
I'm surprised Gatsby came out ahead of Phenomic.io among the ReactJS + JavaScript based static site generators. Having worked with both, Gatsby felt much too opinionated and idiomatic to me, while Phenomic felt much closer to what I would expect a static React site generator to feel like.
- brianllamar 9y ago
  I wonder if it has to do with exposure. I see Kyle(the creator) everywhere (conference speaking and twitter to be specific) and it seems like it is the introduction static site generation with React even thought renderToStaticMarkup is built into the ReactDOM library
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
sandGorgon 9y ago
Even though Hugo may not have the mindshare that Jekyll does, there's HUGE value in having a tool that's a single binary and works on Linux/osx/win and does not need to have 15 minutes of packages and dependencies . And it runs blazingly fast.
mozumder 9y ago
I've been able to get Django to serve pages in less than .2ms (cached), 1-2ms (partially uncached) or about 5ms-10ms (fully uncached) with things like materialized views, streaming HTTP, HTTP/2, and a bunch of other techniques. Are static pages still a necessity for speed?
- alain_gilbert 9y ago
  I guess you did your benchmark on your localhost ? Have you tried to do the same benchmark by hosting your app on the east coast (assuming you live on the west coast) ? For me, google.com takes about 220ms to load.
- brianllamar 9y ago
  I guess the question is how much does running a server that is up all the time and hosting a Django project. Static is either free or pennies to post.
  - davewasthere 9y ago
    And doesn't get hugged to death by HN, unlike the average wordpress installation.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      If you can use a static site generator then you also have the capability to spend the minimal time having a pretty good setup like nginx with cached WordPress. In which case both would likely survive HN.
      - homarp 9y ago
        but the static site does not need to be upgraded every WP security alert.
        WorldMaker 9y ago
        It's nice being able to outsource all of your operations needs to S3 or Surge.sh or Netlify or GitHub or really just about any CDN on the planet.
kentor 9y ago
I wrote my own because I don't like magic, reading a lot of documentation, and I hate templates. Using server side rendering with React is great! https://github.com/kentor/tiny-ssg https://github.com/kentor/tiny-ssg
- Existenceblinks 9y ago
  People can also say they don't like javascript and things built on top of that; React. And javascript is probably worse than magic.
  - kentor 9y ago
    Indeed! It also isn't for people who have "javascript fatigue." And they can use any of the 10 in the list by the OP.
- flukus 9y ago
  I did the same for a blog, except I went with a mak/sed/awk/pandoc combo and got lightning fast incremental builds. Previously I was hexo (listed in the article), it took longer to start than the current solution takes to finish. What made me drop hexo though was the breakages every time I tried to checkout and run on a different computer.
hpaavola 9y ago
I wrote my own few years ago because I wanted to have search, comments, RSS etc. https://github.com/Harri/Spage https://github.com/Harri/Spage
gk1 9y ago
Dang, any idea why this went from #8 to #70-something in less than a minute?
- arikr 9y ago
  Probably flagged because it's pretty blog-spammy.
jdormit 9y ago
I help maintain Jus [0], an opinionated static site generator with a focus on simplicity. It has only two commands - jus build compiles your files into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; and jus serve spins up a local development server with live-reloading capabilities. There is no setup required, and jus understands a variety of input formats, including markdown, handlebars templates, sass, ES6 JavaScript with module imports. One outstanding feature that I frequently use is that jus stores a bunch of metadata about the site in the global handlebars context. This means that things like filenames, data files, and per-page frontmatter are available in every template, making it easy to write dynamic lists or index pages. [0] http://jus.js.org http://jus.js.org
geraldbauer 9y ago
FYI: Inspired by TodoMVC and HackerNewsPWA I've started a static site sample showcase [1] - one design, many sites [2]. So far samples include Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, Nanoc, Metalsmith, Jigsaw 'n' more. Cheers. [1] http://staystatic.github.io http://staystatic.github.io [2] https://github.com/staystatic/staystatic https://github.com/staystatic/staystatic PS: Add your site! I add a new one every month for June it's all Python with Pelican [3] http://getpelican.com http://getpelican.com
majkinetor 9y ago
Honestly surprised nanoc isn't mentioned, particularly because it seems to be the most flexible framework.
pomber 9y ago
I'm using Next.js 3.0 export command to generate static sites. Hard to beat that in flexibility.
amiller2571 9y ago
I just use staticjinja, fast enough for my small site and I can use the jinja templates which I learned from a previous job.
waratah 9y ago
Hugo is my favorite but he really need incremental build

67 points by gk1 9y ago

Strong vote for Hugo. Discovered it via HN a month or two ago, very happy with it. Very responsive dev community both for the core project and for themes.

rurban 9y ago
I also checked out a few dozen and decided on Hugo with the Minos theme. The easiest to use.

yodon 9y ago

I'm surprised Gatsby came out ahead of Phenomic.io among the ReactJS + JavaScript based static site generators. Having worked with both, Gatsby felt much too opinionated and idiomatic to me, while Phenomic felt much closer to what I would expect a static React site generator to feel like.

brianllamar 9y ago
I wonder if it has to do with exposure. I see Kyle(the creator) everywhere (conference speaking and twitter to be specific) and it seems like it is the introduction static site generation with React even thought renderToStaticMarkup is built into the ReactDOM library
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

sandGorgon 9y ago

Even though Hugo may not have the mindshare that Jekyll does, there's HUGE value in having a tool that's a single binary and works on Linux/osx/win and does not need to have 15 minutes of packages and dependencies . And it runs blazingly fast.

mozumder 9y ago

I've been able to get Django to serve pages in less than .2ms (cached), 1-2ms (partially uncached) or about 5ms-10ms (fully uncached) with things like materialized views, streaming HTTP, HTTP/2, and a bunch of other techniques. Are static pages still a necessity for speed?

alain_gilbert 9y ago
I guess you did your benchmark on your localhost ? Have you tried to do the same benchmark by hosting your app on the east coast (assuming you live on the west coast) ? For me, google.com takes about 220ms to load.
brianllamar 9y ago
I guess the question is how much does running a server that is up all the time and hosting a Django project. Static is either free or pennies to post.
- davewasthere 9y ago
  And doesn't get hugged to death by HN, unlike the average wordpress installation.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    If you can use a static site generator then you also have the capability to spend the minimal time having a pretty good setup like nginx with cached WordPress. In which case both would likely survive HN.
    - homarp 9y ago
      but the static site does not need to be upgraded every WP security alert.
      - WorldMaker 9y ago
        It's nice being able to outsource all of your operations needs to S3 or Surge.sh or Netlify or GitHub or really just about any CDN on the planet.

kentor 9y ago

I wrote my own because I don't like magic, reading a lot of documentation, and I hate templates. Using server side rendering with React is great! https://github.com/kentor/tiny-ssg https://github.com/kentor/tiny-ssg

Existenceblinks 9y ago
People can also say they don't like javascript and things built on top of that; React. And javascript is probably worse than magic.
- kentor 9y ago
  Indeed! It also isn't for people who have "javascript fatigue." And they can use any of the 10 in the list by the OP.
flukus 9y ago
I did the same for a blog, except I went with a mak/sed/awk/pandoc combo and got lightning fast incremental builds. Previously I was hexo (listed in the article), it took longer to start than the current solution takes to finish. What made me drop hexo though was the breakages every time I tried to checkout and run on a different computer.

hpaavola 9y ago

I wrote my own few years ago because I wanted to have search, comments, RSS etc. https://github.com/Harri/Spage https://github.com/Harri/Spage

gk1 9y ago

Dang, any idea why this went from #8 to #70-something in less than a minute?

arikr 9y ago
Probably flagged because it's pretty blog-spammy.

jdormit 9y ago

I help maintain Jus [0], an opinionated static site generator with a focus on simplicity. It has only two commands - jus build compiles your files into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; and jus serve spins up a local development server with live-reloading capabilities. There is no setup required, and jus understands a variety of input formats, including markdown, handlebars templates, sass, ES6 JavaScript with module imports. One outstanding feature that I frequently use is that jus stores a bunch of metadata about the site in the global handlebars context. This means that things like filenames, data files, and per-page frontmatter are available in every template, making it easy to write dynamic lists or index pages. [0] http://jus.js.org http://jus.js.org

geraldbauer 9y ago

FYI: Inspired by TodoMVC and HackerNewsPWA I've started a static site sample showcase [1] - one design, many sites [2]. So far samples include Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, Nanoc, Metalsmith, Jigsaw 'n' more. Cheers. [1] http://staystatic.github.io http://staystatic.github.io [2] https://github.com/staystatic/staystatic https://github.com/staystatic/staystatic PS: Add your site! I add a new one every month for June it's all Python with Pelican [3] http://getpelican.com http://getpelican.com

majkinetor 9y ago

Honestly surprised nanoc isn't mentioned, particularly because it seems to be the most flexible framework.

pomber 9y ago

I'm using Next.js 3.0 export command to generate static sites. Hard to beat that in flexibility.

amiller2571 9y ago

I just use staticjinja, fast enough for my small site and I can use the jinja templates which I learned from a previous job.

waratah 9y ago

Hugo is my favorite but he really need incremental build