almost 8 years ago from Evan Knight, Design @Google
What's the latest on static site generators (with blog functionality)?
I've been looking through these: https://github.com/pinceladasdaweb/Static-Site-Generators, but having a tough time deciding on a new one. I've tried Cactus, Jekyll, Middleman, Hugo, but after some reading I'm considering switching to maybe just gulp.js. Thoughts?
Jekyll is great for most static sites, especially ones with blogs (but it's only for devs). For other things, React + Webpack is pretty sweet.
I used to use Jekyll with Gulp.js but the integration never worked seamlessly enough so I switched to Middleman. So far I haven't even needed gulp for my websites and I am extremely happy with it. It's more complex but the plugin system is on fleek (y)
I am going to say your issues were with how you set it up. They work perfectly together and you don't need gulp since it's just a task management tool.
Yep, there was mostly a problem with setting up product pages through gh-pages. The relative and base URLs would break and so I had trouble with Jekyll. There was probably a relatively easy fix except Middleman just sounded like a better choice for me.
I've been playing around with Middleman too. I really like getting "localization" logic for free.
Have you tried Kirby?
Kirby is not static, it is PHP and makes server-side calls. It is flat-file, so no database, but it's not static in the sense that OP is asking, I think. It still needs PHP to work, which makes it dynamic :)
You can convert it to be static - https://gist.github.com/bastianallgeier/5f182b30d4c90152b468.
Surge.sh you handle it from the command line.
But that is not a static site generator, they just host your static content. Nevertheless, surge.sh is a great service and I use it for multiple projects.
Thanks for the mention, Luis! Like Leon said, you can use Surge.sh with any static site generator to publish your comiled files to the web for free. Here’s our guide for Jekyll, for example.
We do also maintain a static web server of our own called Harp.
Check out our directory as well: https://www.staticgen.com
It has more details on each of them and lets you sort them by stars, forks and issues.
I gave a talk about moving from a dynamic to a static approach at the latest Static Web-Tech meetup, and there's a (low quality, sorry) video of the talk here:
Jekyll, Middleman, Roots and Hugo stands out a bit, in my mind.
Jekyll because it's so widespread and made super popular by the GitHub Pages integration. Traditionally very blogging focused, but lately it's become better at more general sites.
Middleman and Roots because they're built by top agencies that use them for serious projects (Instrument and Carrot).
Hugo because it's so damn fast. I've been checking out the build times on our clients at Netlify that use Hugo, and they're super impressive. Main drawback with Hugo is the lack of a plugin engine...
Metalsmith is by far the best I've used.
If you're a javascript dev you'll appreciate it's functional approach. Simply chain 'plugins' together to make your perfect workflow.
Metalsmith(__dirname) .use(drafts()) .use(markdown()) .use(permalinks('posts/:title')) .use(templates('handlebars')) .build(function(err) { if (err) throw err; }); Evan,
What are you looking for? "The latest on.." is not a requirement / wish. Why did you like / dislike other systems? Why are you considering gulp.js? Personally I have enjoyed Middleman very much, but maybe it will suck big time for your use case.
My go-to used to be Jekyll, then I tried out Siteleaf for a while (which is great if you need a GUI to manage sites, especially for clients), but now I use Middleman.
If you're good with Ruby, Middleman is perfect because it essentially solves the same problems that Jekyll solves, with the added extensibility and power of Ruby.
Have you looked at GatsbyJS and React-Static? Been really impressed with the speed and performance. Also, these render the page as a static progressive web app.
In case you want to check out more SSGs: https://blog.zipboard.co/how-to-start-with-static-sites-807b8ddfecc
I'm currently using https://hexo.io/. Like it, node.js and blog aware. I am thinking of messing around with http://harpjs.com/ using https://github.com/superhighfives/harp-gulp-browsersync-boilerplate.
Jekyll.
Though never used anything else.
It isn't necessarily the most efficient, of full-featured, but I enjoy using Bonsai, http://tinytree.info
Surprised no one has mentioned Cactus. It's a fantastic little app for creating static sites. Sleek UI and quick deployment to S3 built-in.
We made cactusformac.com a while ago and still use it for framerjs.com
I've really enjoyed using Cactus, but worried there won't be any more support for it since you guys are making Framer so awesome :) Do you have any plans to make updates?
One small thing I've had trouble with is that paths get exported as "/static" instead of "../static" when I use:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{% static '/css/style.css' %}>
<a href="{% url '/careers' %}">Careers</a>
Should I just not use Django for static and url paths?
Fair point. We still use it, but won't add anything major to it.
Assemble works easily with Node, Grunt, and Yeoman.
Sorry - repost here.
I've used Jekyll for years then this spring I wrote my own using Gulp. Why? To have an out of the box support for an accompanying styleguide.
I'm on the way of outsourcing it at http://github.com/metamn/ssgg
Hammer is awesome. http://hammerformac.com
Like many others, I love Jekyll!
I am using it for my design stuff/portfolio and my clothing brand site. Using Jekyll for eCommerce is an interesting exercise, but I'm enjoying the challenge.
I've tried to use Middleman in the past and didn't like it. I also tried a bunch of eCommerce platforms that claimed "all-in-one" solutions before going back to Jekyll. I like how customizable it is.
Of course, Middleman seems like it has a thriving plugin ecosystem.
Check out this interesting thread on the difference between Metalsmith and Gulp. Even though it's about Metalsmith (which is excellent), I think it's relevant to your thoughts: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23227248/is-there-some-gulp-plugin-that-lets-it-perform-the-function-of-a-static-site-gen/23858857?sgp=2#23858857
You can also find a lot of articles/tutorials etc on static site generators, organized by tool at http://www.thenewdynamic.org/ (a site of mine)
How about a static site generator with an Ember based modular CMS?
I swear by this platform and have used it for client projects like this.
I've only tinkered with Webhook and was extremely impressed. Surprised this platform isn't more popular.
Anvil for Mac + Jekyll
Do you want static website or blog?
Both would be nice, was considering maybe Hugo with gulp.js for blog functionality. https://github.com/jbrodriguez/hugulp, or http://blog.lmorchard.com/2014/10/20/static-blog-generation-with-gulp/
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