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Static Site Generator (SSG) as a Free Squarespace Alternative?

I'm a novice with no expertise in website building or design. I went with Squarespace for a business site because they were the cheapest noob-friendly option I could find at the time. But I've had lots of problems with them, and they regularly raise their prices, and their cheapest plan is currently $16/mo ($170/yr), and they lock features like javascript code behind even higher prices. When I was looking into wiki/documentation site options, I found *Static Site Generators* (SSG), which create static websites that are *free to host* with netlify, github pages, Cloudflare pages, etc. They have templates and features built-in so you can often just create some markdown files and they're quickly transformed into a beautiful, fast, secure, free website. You often don't need technical knowledge/expertise, but you can customize them further if you have that. https://jamstack.org/generators/ has a list of them. *MKDocs Material theme* is pretty elaborate and popular for hosting *documentation/wikis*. If you compare it to bookstackapp.com for example, *bookstack* requires paid hosting since it's not static, and requires much more technical expertise to get running and to customize. I find MKdocs Material to be pretty user/noob-friendly, with good documentation and easy customization. Other SSGs can require a lot more technical knowledge or be less easily-customizable. But MKDocs Material doesn't seem great for a general business website. After learning about SSGs I realized that my Squarespace site is all static content and should be replaceable with an SSG. I've been *trying to find an SSG that's as good for general sites as MKDocs Material is for wikis*. # Comparisons: - https://medium.com/@nampara17/whats-the-best-cms-for-static-websites-12364ab911ef - https://teleporthq.io/blog/popular-static-site-generators - https://tiiny.host/blog/10-best-cms-static-sites/ - https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/static-site-generators-a-beginners-guide/321745 *Hugo, Gatsby, Eleventy (11ty), and Astro* are the main ones I see recommended for noobies. They all have themes or "starter projects" you can use as templates. The difficulty is finding a theme/template that's as good for a regular website as MKDocs Material is for documentation/wikis. For example Jekyll has tons -- https://jekyllrb.com/docs/themes/, and it would be difficult to browse through and test all of them. I happened to come across this one -- https://mmistakes.github.io/minimal-mistakes/about/ -- which looks quite good for both documentation and general sites, but the search cannot find links (_which is important for my documentation site_). I found a Hugo theme that seemed good but the dev wasn't active on github and people were having unanswered problems. *Middleman* is another SSG that sounds good, but their theme page doesn't have any pictures or quick links to demo sites, so it would be even more difficult to check them all out. And looking into them more, I'm told that *Astro* requires javascript, CSS, and html knowledge. *Eleventy* (11ty) also requires JS and HTML coding. And *Gatsby* doesn't look that simple either https://www.sitepoint.com/gatsby-guide/. *Publii* (static site CMS) was recommended as noob-friendly but it's extremely limited. I didn't like it at all. *TeleportHQ* is MUCH better than Publii, but it's not intuitive or easy enough to use to be a good replacement for Squarespace IMO. *Plasmic, Webflow, and Couch CMS* seem to be similar options. _(Hit character limit; continued in comments)_ Oh wow, there's no formatting...

MaximilianKohlr 3y ago
# Email contact forms: One feature SSGs are missing is email contact forms. Some of them use Netlify forms https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/ https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/ - 100 submissions per site /month ($19+ when exceeded). https://docs.netlify.com/accounts-and-billing/billing-faq/ https://docs.netlify.com/accounts-and-billing/billing-faq/ Hugo's Piko theme uses FormSubmit.io (free) or Fabform.io ($5/mo). But I haven't tested that to understand how well it works and why/how it's free. Hugo's Tella theme uses getform.io -- https://github.com/opera7133/tella/issues/63 https://github.com/opera7133/tella/issues/63 (50/mo). 250/mo for free and $8/mo for unlimited with https://web3forms.com/ https://web3forms.com/ is the best I've seen so far _(besides the completely free one which I'm not sure about)_. I haven't seen any of them mention using an SMTP. I saw these *HTML templates* https://html5up.net/ https://html5up.net/ recommended on another forum, but I would think they’d require more technical knowledge to use/customize than an SSG. They’re all pretty elaborate too. None are basic business or personal type websites. # Wordpress: I created a basic, free WordPress site some years ago when I was trying to set up a blog and I found it difficult to use and opted instead for Blogspot. However, I have more experience & knowledge now, so self-hosted Wordpress might be an option. When I looked into Wordpress I was comparing the ".com" options (wordpress.com/pricing) with Squarespace, and they were more expensive. Now that I'm more familiar with hosting my own linux web server, I could probably use the ".org" and host on a $5-10/mo server but *I get a lot of traffic on my business site (_can reach 1m+ views in a month_) and I'm not sure how good/costly a server I'd need to keep it running*. I saw *Oxygen Builder* recommended as a "Squarespace-type UI" for Wordpress, and I watched some of the tutorials (oxygenbuilder.com/tutorials) and it seems like a decent option for a one-time $130 fee. But still not static. I saw someone using the https://generatepress.com/ https://generatepress.com/ WordPress theme for their website https://servermanager.guide/about https://servermanager.guide/about. It looks like the premium $44/yr option may be similar enough to Squarespace. It looks like you can also install wordpress on your PC and use plugins to output static sites. A limiting factor may be finding free/cheap plugins that make it as easy to edit as Squarespace. And I don't see a way to get contact/email forms working. # Flat CMS options: I found this [10 Best Flat CMS for Lightweight Websites - https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/flat-cms/ https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/flat-cms/] which lists *Grav* at #1. I checked out Grav and it's purely markdown and has nice templates (_Open Publishing Space, Agency, Deliver Site_) https://getgrav.org/downloads/skeletons https://getgrav.org/downloads/skeletons. So that might be the best option. The Agency template has a *contact form*, but [looking at the code](https://github.com/getgrav/grav-skeleton-agency-site/blob/develop/pages/01.home/_contact/form.md?plain=1 https://github.com/getgrav/grav-skeleton-agency-site/blob/de...) I don't see how it's being submitted/sent/emailed. I found this page - https://learn.getgrav.org/17/forms/forms/example-form https://learn.getgrav.org/17/forms/forms/example-form - which looks like it can utilize any SMTP - https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-email/blob/develop/README.md https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-email/blob/develop/RE.... But that, the installation instructions, and [the webhosting section](https://learn.getgrav.org/16/webservers-hosting https://learn.getgrav.org/16/webservers-hosting) all indicate that it's not a static site that you can upload to Netlify. But it still seems like a cheap and user-friendly alternative to Squarespace. It looks like Grav has a [static generator plugin](https://getgrav.org/downloads/plugins https://getgrav.org/downloads/plugins) (and another one called [blackhole](https://github.com/barryanders/grav-plugin-blackhole https://github.com/barryanders/grav-plugin-blackhole)). If you can install php on your PC you can probably use Grav locally to output a static site. I'm guessing that would disable the email/contact function (and other dynamic features) though. I saw [*Decap CMS*](https://decapcms.org/ https://decapcms.org/) mentioned as another possibility but the editor seems too limited. It looks like the other "Best Flat CMS" options are also not static sites.

MaximilianKohlr 3y ago

# Email contact forms: One feature SSGs are missing is email contact forms. Some of them use Netlify forms https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/ https://www.netlify.com/platform/core/forms/ - 100 submissions per site /month ($19+ when exceeded). https://docs.netlify.com/accounts-and-billing/billing-faq/ https://docs.netlify.com/accounts-and-billing/billing-faq/ Hugo's Piko theme uses FormSubmit.io (free) or Fabform.io ($5/mo). But I haven't tested that to understand how well it works and why/how it's free. Hugo's Tella theme uses getform.io -- https://github.com/opera7133/tella/issues/63 https://github.com/opera7133/tella/issues/63 (50/mo). 250/mo for free and $8/mo for unlimited with https://web3forms.com/ https://web3forms.com/ is the best I've seen so far _(besides the completely free one which I'm not sure about)_. I haven't seen any of them mention using an SMTP. I saw these *HTML templates* https://html5up.net/ https://html5up.net/ recommended on another forum, but I would think they’d require more technical knowledge to use/customize than an SSG. They’re all pretty elaborate too. None are basic business or personal type websites. # Wordpress: I created a basic, free WordPress site some years ago when I was trying to set up a blog and I found it difficult to use and opted instead for Blogspot. However, I have more experience & knowledge now, so self-hosted Wordpress might be an option. When I looked into Wordpress I was comparing the ".com" options (wordpress.com/pricing) with Squarespace, and they were more expensive. Now that I'm more familiar with hosting my own linux web server, I could probably use the ".org" and host on a $5-10/mo server but *I get a lot of traffic on my business site (_can reach 1m+ views in a month_) and I'm not sure how good/costly a server I'd need to keep it running*. I saw *Oxygen Builder* recommended as a "Squarespace-type UI" for Wordpress, and I watched some of the tutorials (oxygenbuilder.com/tutorials) and it seems like a decent option for a one-time $130 fee. But still not static. I saw someone using the https://generatepress.com/ https://generatepress.com/ WordPress theme for their website https://servermanager.guide/about https://servermanager.guide/about. It looks like the premium $44/yr option may be similar enough to Squarespace. It looks like you can also install wordpress on your PC and use plugins to output static sites. A limiting factor may be finding free/cheap plugins that make it as easy to edit as Squarespace. And I don't see a way to get contact/email forms working. # Flat CMS options: I found this [10 Best Flat CMS for Lightweight Websites - https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/flat-cms/ https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/flat-cms/] which lists *Grav* at #1. I checked out Grav and it's purely markdown and has nice templates (_Open Publishing Space, Agency, Deliver Site_) https://getgrav.org/downloads/skeletons https://getgrav.org/downloads/skeletons. So that might be the best option. The Agency template has a *contact form*, but [looking at the code](https://github.com/getgrav/grav-skeleton-agency-site/blob/develop/pages/01.home/_contact/form.md?plain=1 https://github.com/getgrav/grav-skeleton-agency-site/blob/de...) I don't see how it's being submitted/sent/emailed. I found this page - https://learn.getgrav.org/17/forms/forms/example-form https://learn.getgrav.org/17/forms/forms/example-form - which looks like it can utilize any SMTP - https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-email/blob/develop/README.md https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-email/blob/develop/RE.... But that, the installation instructions, and [the webhosting section](https://learn.getgrav.org/16/webservers-hosting https://learn.getgrav.org/16/webservers-hosting) all indicate that it's not a static site that you can upload to Netlify. But it still seems like a cheap and user-friendly alternative to Squarespace. It looks like Grav has a [static generator plugin](https://getgrav.org/downloads/plugins https://getgrav.org/downloads/plugins) (and another one called [blackhole](https://github.com/barryanders/grav-plugin-blackhole https://github.com/barryanders/grav-plugin-blackhole)). If you can install php on your PC you can probably use Grav locally to output a static site. I'm guessing that would disable the email/contact function (and other dynamic features) though. I saw [*Decap CMS*](https://decapcms.org/ https://decapcms.org/) mentioned as another possibility but the editor seems too limited. It looks like the other "Best Flat CMS" options are also not static sites.