Philosophy

The core approach behind each static site generator.

Astro

Prioritizes shipping zero JavaScript by default, rendering components from any UI framework to static HTML at build time and only hydrating small “islands” of interactivity where explicitly requested.

VuePress

Built specifically for Vue-centric documentation sites, pairing Markdown content with the ability to embed live Vue components; as of 2026 it’s effectively superseded by its own successor, VitePress.

VitePress

VuePress’s official successor, rebuilt on Vite for much faster builds and a lighter default theme, now the Vue team’s actively recommended static site generator for documentation.

Gatsby

Originally prioritized a rich, plugin-driven GraphQL data layer that could pull content from any source (CMS, filesystem, APIs) into a single unified React app; development has slowed significantly since Netlify’s 2023 acquisition.

Docusaurus

Built by Meta specifically for documentation sites, prioritizing versioned docs, built-in search, and a polished out-of-the-box experience for React-based content sites.

Eleventy

Prioritizes being a simple, unopinionated static site generator with no required client-side framework, letting authors choose from many templating languages rather than imposing one.

Hugo

Prioritizes raw build speed above all else, compiled as a single Go binary with no runtime dependencies, aimed at very large content sites that need to rebuild quickly.

Jekyll

One of the original modern static site generators, prioritizing simplicity and a direct mapping from Markdown files and front matter to a blog-style site, and the engine that still powers GitHub Pages by default.

Zola

Similar in spirit to Hugo — a single, dependency-free Rust binary — prioritizing speed and simplicity with built-in support for Sass, syntax highlighting, and search indexing without extra plugins.