Use Cases and Maturity

What each static site generator is typically used for, and how actively developed it is.

Astro

Widely regarded as the current default choice for new content-first sites and blogs in 2026, with usage that has grown sharply as teams move away from heavier alternatives like Gatsby.

VuePress

Historically popular for Vue-ecosystem documentation, but effectively in maintenance mode as of 2026, with the Vue team’s official recommendation shifting to VitePress for new projects.

VitePress

The current recommended choice for Vue-ecosystem documentation sites, actively developed and used for Vue’s own official documentation.

Gatsby

Still used to maintain existing sites, but new development has slowed dramatically since Netlify’s 2023 acquisition — weekly downloads have fallen sharply and most teams evaluating new projects now default to Astro or Next.js instead.

Docusaurus

A common choice for open-source project documentation, proven at scale by Meta’s own projects and widely adopted across the React/JS ecosystem, though newer, lighter tools like Starlight (built on Astro) are drawing some new docs projects away.

Eleventy

Popular with developers who want a lightweight, dependency-light static site without committing to a specific UI framework, common for blogs and simple content sites.

Hugo

A common choice for large content sites, blogs, and documentation where build speed at scale matters most, popular in both individual and enterprise use.

Jekyll

Still widely used, particularly for GitHub Pages-hosted project sites and blogs, though its growth has slowed as newer, faster generators have emerged.

Zola

A niche but steadily growing choice for developers who want Hugo-like speed and a single-binary setup but prefer Rust and the Tera templating syntax.