Sat, Oct 3, 2020
Hugo (Details)
Most reviews will say Hugo is really fast, but they don’t have many timing numbers to back that up.
- Language - Go
- Content type - Markdown/html
- Template syntax - go’s html/template
Pros
- Fast build time
- Theme is separate from content
- Post and assets can live in the same folders
Cons
- The template syntax is not as nice as others
- No asset pipeline with the default template.
Jekyll (Details)
- Language - Ruby on Rails
- Content Format - Markdown
- Output Format - Static web pages
- How easy it it to create content
- How easy is it to add plugins
- How easy is it to add a marketplace
- Pros:
- Cons:
Hexo (Details)
- Language - Node.js
- Content Format
- Output Format
- How easy it it to create content
- How easy is it to add plugins
- How easy is it to add a marketplace
- Pros:
- Cons:
Sculpin (Details)
Pros:
- PHP - if you know PHP
- Easy to install and create a base project.
- Easy to modify the exiting theme.
Cons:
- Community support seems lower than some others.
- No alternative themes to choose from
- Requires date prefixed posts
- Missing livereload
- Picky front matter.
- Picky content, even in code section.
sudo apt-get install composer php-xml
Sapper
This is the only general purpose static generator that I would put up with the other blog specific generators.
Pros:
- Easy installation.
- Nice default theme.
- Search bar is built into the default theme.
Cons:
- No alternative themes to choose from
- No post hierarchy, all the posts have to go in the main posts folder.
- Search feature was slow with larger number of pages.
Timing Comparison
| Framework | 50 pages | 100 pages | 500 pages | 1k pages | 5k pages | 10k pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hugo | .6s | .4s | 2.4s | 3.8s | 1m7s | 4m7s |
| Jekyll | 3.8s | 5.9s | 24.7s | 48s | 4m13s | 8m31s |
| Hexo | 30.2s | 30.4s | 43.3s | 1m5s | crash | crash |
| Sculpin | 0.5s | .7s | 2.8s | 5.7s | 1m18s | 153m |
| Sapper | 2.1s | 2.3s | 3.2s | 4.3s | 12.5s | 26.2s |
Also tested…
- The setup process for these was too much for any non-developers.
Gatsby
- Creating a basic blog could be done using a template, but…
- Themes weren’t built in
- Customizing themes was not easy
- Without the template git repository, it would take hours to setup
Next.js
- Like Gatsby, themes weren’t built in
- Hours to get your first post setup, if at all.
- No prebuilt themes
Nuxt
Eleventy
- No prebuilt themes
Scully
- Requires node 12
- Based on angular