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Last time I did some research on SSGs, I saw lots of complaints about Hugo, including this one by the creator of Zola: > This tool and the template engine it i

Last time I did some research on SSGs, I saw lots of complaints about Hugo, including this one by the creator of Zola: > This tool and the template engine it is using were born from an intense dislike of the (insane) Golang template engine and therefore of Hugo that I was using before for 6+ sites. Could anyone with experience with this and other solutions weigh in? There are so many of them my head spins when I think about it. I just want something that doesn't make me babysit it (as in, I can write as little code as possible to get a simple static webite) and has the usual things you'd want by default (e.g. image optimization) and is extensible if I do outgrow it and need to add dynamic components.

brabel 5y ago
Go templates are indeed weird... and Hugo is very far from the only option in this space... I never tire to link to the list of SSGs available today: https://jamstack.org/generators/ https://jamstack.org/generators/ Each option lists which template language it uses, license and language it's written in... just pick the option that best suits your taste among the hundreds of options there... they're mostly all great, Hugo really is just one option in hundreds.
seanwilson 5y ago
I didn't like Hugo template syntax at first but how complex is your logic really going to get? It generally doesn't get much more complex than "if this do that", "loop over each post", "do this for the last post only" etc.
bbkane 5y ago
There are many options because these are personal choices. Pick a SSG that has a template language you like and has decent documentation and maybe plugins. In addition, make sure the SSG is easy to install - for example, I migrated from Jekyll to Zola because the templating language is similar and Zola is a single binary while Jekyll is a Ruby gem with C dependencies (at least it was when I tried to install it last) and I had a rough time trying to install it. For what it's worth, I like Zola, but it might not be right for you :)
jph 5y ago
Zola is the best IMHO because it combines a single binary, expressive templates, runtime speed, and batteries included for images, sections, tags, search, links, microformats, and deployments. Zola also has excellent documentation, clarity of design, and a highly motivated leader in Vincent Prouillet. Rust lends itself very well to SSGs.

brabel 5y ago

Go templates are indeed weird... and Hugo is very far from the only option in this space... I never tire to link to the list of SSGs available today: https://jamstack.org/generators/ https://jamstack.org/generators/ Each option lists which template language it uses, license and language it's written in... just pick the option that best suits your taste among the hundreds of options there... they're mostly all great, Hugo really is just one option in hundreds.

seanwilson 5y ago

I didn't like Hugo template syntax at first but how complex is your logic really going to get? It generally doesn't get much more complex than "if this do that", "loop over each post", "do this for the last post only" etc.

bbkane 5y ago

There are many options because these are personal choices. Pick a SSG that has a template language you like and has decent documentation and maybe plugins. In addition, make sure the SSG is easy to install - for example, I migrated from Jekyll to Zola because the templating language is similar and Zola is a single binary while Jekyll is a Ruby gem with C dependencies (at least it was when I tried to install it last) and I had a rough time trying to install it. For what it's worth, I like Zola, but it might not be right for you :)

jph 5y ago

Zola is the best IMHO because it combines a single binary, expressive templates, runtime speed, and batteries included for images, sections, tags, search, links, microformats, and deployments. Zola also has excellent documentation, clarity of design, and a highly motivated leader in Vincent Prouillet. Rust lends itself very well to SSGs.