Best 5 Static Site Generators for Website Development in 2022
Hi folks,
This article is the continuation of my previous article —”Static Site Generators for Web Development: Why You Should Use Them”, in which we learnt about Static Site Generators (SSG) uses and benefits.
Now, we will have a look on some of the best Static Site Generators (SSG) that can be used in development of the best and secure websites.
So let’s talk about the best Static Site Generators (SSG) for website development.
5 Best Static Site Generators
Before we discuss specific static page generators, it’s worth noting that all of these tools are hosted separately. To use them, you’ll need to find a hosting provider that can either set them up for you or give you command line access.
With that in mind, we’re going to go over some of our best picks for static page generators in 2022.
1. Quarto
Quarto Websites are a convenient way to publish groups of documents. Documents published as part of a website share navigational elements, rendering options, and visual style.
Website navigation can be provided through a global navbar, a sidebar with links, or a combination of both for sites that have multiple levels of content. You can also enable full text search for websites.
Quarto websites can be published to a wide variety of destinations including GitHub Pages, Netlify, RStudio Connect, or any other static hosting service or intranet web server. See the documentation on Publishing Websites for additional details.
Demo of Qurto document
Quarto® is an open-source scientific and technical publishing system built on Pandoc
- Create dynamic content with Python, R, Julia, and Observable.
- Author documents as plain text markdown or Jupyter notebooks.
- Publish high-quality articles, reports, presentations, websites, blogs, and books in HTML, PDF, MS Word, ePub, and more.
- Author with scientific markdown, including equations, citations, crossrefs, figure panels, callouts, advanced layout, and more.
2. Jekyll
Jekyll is one of the most popular open source static website generators — and for good reason. It’s the software that powers GitHub Pages, which offers free hosting for static pages.
At its core, Jekyll is a generator suitable for blogging. This static software supports Markdown, comes with a comprehensive taxonomy system, and supports the Liquid templating language.
Some of the most popular websites that use Jekyll include Ruby on Rails, Sketch, and Spotify for Developers.
If you’re looking to launch a free static website, Jekyll and Github Pages might be a fantastic combination for you.
3. Hugo
Hugo is an open source static website generator that bills itself as a “universal” framework. That’s a fancy way of saying that you can use Hugo to create a wide variety of websites that go beyond simple blogs and brochure sites.
With Hugo, you can generate pages at lightning speed, with build times often under one second. This software allows you to preview changes to your pages as you make them using LiveReload and offers powerful theme functionality.
Hugo uses a modular system to help you create static websites. You have several modules to choose from, including content, layout, and data.
Some popular websites that use Hugo include the 1Password documentation site, the Linode docs section, and KeyCDN.
With Hugo, you can combine multiple modules on any page to get exactly the features you need.
4. Gridsome
Gridsome is a powerful static page generator. You can use it to build pages with modern tools like Vue.js and GraphQL.
You can also use Gridsome to set up a “header” for your CMS. For example, you can use Gridsome to generate static pages using data pulled from WordPress, a “headless” CMS setup.
The advantage of a headless setup is that you get all the best parts of using static pages while taking advantage of the full range of CMS features. In other words, you get access to databases, advanced taxonomies, and even full-fledged text editors.
It’s also worth noting that Gridsome offers a wide collection of plugins that you can use to extend the functionality of the generator. If there’s a feature that the framework doesn’t provide out of the box, chances are there’s a plugin for it.
Gridsome is still a relatively new static website generator. Two great examples of sites that already use this software are Smart City Expo Atlanta and Format.
As you can imagine, Gridsome isn’t as beginner-friendly as the other tools on this list. You will need some web development experience to get the most out of this software.
If you are already familiar with Vue.js, Gridsome is one of the best static page generators you can use.
5. Pelican
Pelican is a little known static website generator that is all about Python. If you know Python, you can use this software to create static pages using Markdown and reStructuredText.
This software comes with a set of themes that you can customize and includes multi-language support. In addition, Pelican allows you to import data from WordPress, RSS feeds, and several other third-party sources, making it an excellent choice for a headless setup.
Pelican offers a robust set of plugins that you can set up to extend the functionality of the generator. Overall, it’s one of the leanest static page generators on our list, but it’s a great choice if you already know or want to learn Python.
What to consider when choosing a static page generator
Your choice of static page generator will primarily depend on three factors. Let’s break down which ones they are:
- What language the generator uses: Some static page generators rely heavily on JavaScript and other libraries. Depending on which generator you use, you may need some knowledge of its programming language.
- Ease of Use: If you’re an experienced web developer, you should be able to pick up any static page generator relatively easily. However, if you’re working on one of your first projects, you’ll want to opt for a beginner-friendly generator.
- The type of content it supports: The most popular static page generators allow you to create all kinds of pages. However, others focus on specific types of content, such as blog posts.
- Existing software community: In general, we recommend that you use tools with well-established user communities. This way, you will find it easier to solve problems and get answers to questions.
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