Best Static Site Generators Ranked (Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy…)

In the ever-evolving world of web development, static site generators (SSGs) have emerged as powerful tools that combine the performance benefits of static sites with the flexibility of content management systems. This comprehensive guide ranks the top static site generators of 2025, helping you find the perfect tool for your next project.

What Makes a Great Static Site Generator?

Before diving into specific tools, let’s establish our criteria for evaluation:

  1. Build Speed: How quickly the generator processes content into a deployable site
  2. Learning Curve: Ease of adoption for new developers
  3. Ecosystem: Available plugins, themes, and community support
  4. Flexibility: Customization options and integration capabilities
  5. Documentation: Quality and comprehensiveness of official guides
  6. Performance: Runtime efficiency of generated sites

1. Hugo: The Speed Champion

Overall Score: 9.5/10

Hugo continues to dominate the SSG landscape in 2025, primarily due to its unmatched build speed. Written in Go, Hugo can generate thousands of pages in milliseconds.

Key Strengths:

  • Lightning-fast builds: Regenerates sites 10-100x faster than most competitors
  • Zero dependencies: Single binary installation
  • Mature ecosystem: Extensive theme marketplace and plugin architecture
  • Multilingual support: Built-in internationalization
  • Flexible content model: Supports taxonomies, sections, and custom content types

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Go templating syntax has a moderate learning curve
  • Advanced customizations may require Go knowledge

Ideal For:

  • Large documentation sites
  • Media-rich blogs with frequent updates
  • Enterprise applications requiring rapid deployment
# Quick start with Hugo
hugo new site mysite
cd mysite
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/theNewDynamic/gohugo-theme-ananke themes/ananke
echo "theme = 'ananke'" >> config.toml
hugo server -D

2. Next.js: The React Powerhouse

Overall Score: 9.3/10

While technically a React framework, Next.js has evolved into an exceptional static site generator with its enhanced static export capabilities.

Key Strengths:

  • React ecosystem: Leverages the vast React component ecosystem
  • Hybrid rendering: Static generation, server-side rendering, and incremental static regeneration
  • Image optimization: Built-in responsive image handling
  • API routes: Serverless functions integration
  • Excellent developer experience: Hot module replacement and intuitive routing

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Larger bundle sizes compared to pure SSGs
  • Requires JavaScript knowledge
  • Steeper learning curve for non-React developers

Ideal For:

  • React developers building content-heavy applications
  • Sites requiring dynamic features with static foundations
  • JAMstack applications with API integrations
// Simple Next.js static page
export default function HomePage() {
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>Welcome to my statically generated site</h1>
      <p>Built with Next.js static export</p>
    </div>
  )
}

3. Astro: The Performance Innovator

Overall Score: 9.2/10

Astro has risen rapidly through the ranks since its introduction, becoming a top contender in 2025 with its “zero-JavaScript by default” approach and component islands architecture.

Key Strengths:

  • Partial hydration: Load JavaScript only where needed
  • Framework agnostic: Use React, Vue, Svelte, or plain HTML in the same project
  • Content collections: First-class content management
  • Optimized asset pipeline: Built-in image optimization
  • View transitions API: Smooth page transitions

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Relatively newer ecosystem compared to established alternatives
  • Documentation can be sparse for advanced use cases

Ideal For:

  • Content-focused websites prioritizing performance
  • Multi-framework teams
  • Projects requiring minimal client-side JavaScript
---
// Astro component example
const title = "Hello, Astro!";
---

<html>
  <head>
    <title>{title}</title>
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>{title}</h1>
    <p>Welcome to my static site built with Astro</p>
  </body>
</html>

4. Eleventy (11ty): The Flexible Minimalist

Overall Score: 9.0/10

Eleventy has carved out a devoted following with its zero-config approach and template language flexibility, making it a top choice for those who want simplicity without sacrificing power.

Key Strengths:

  • Multiple template languages: Works with Liquid, Nunjucks, Handlebars, and more
  • Zero client-side JavaScript: Focus on lean output
  • Highly customizable data pipeline: Flexible data handling
  • Incremental builds: Fast development experience
  • Plugin ecosystem: Growing collection of community tools

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Less structured than some competitors
  • Can require more configuration for complex projects

Ideal For:

  • Developers transitioning from legacy systems
  • Projects requiring multiple template languages
  • Performance-focused teams prioritizing lean output
// Basic Eleventy config
module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
  // Copy assets directory
  eleventyConfig.addPassthroughCopy("assets");
  
  // Custom filter
  eleventyConfig.addFilter("readableDate", dateObj => {
    return new Date(dateObj).toLocaleDateString()
  });
  
  return {
    dir: {
      input: "src",
      output: "dist"
    }
  };
};

5. Jekyll: The Reliable Pioneer

Overall Score: 8.7/10

The original static site generator that popularized the category, Jekyll remains relevant in 2025 thanks to its stability, GitHub Pages integration, and robust plugin ecosystem.

Key Strengths:

  • GitHub Pages integration: Seamless deployment
  • Mature ecosystem: Thousands of themes and plugins
  • Liquid templating: Easy to learn syntax
  • Built-in blog awareness: Native support for posts, categories, and tags
  • YAML front matter: Intuitive content organization

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Slower build times for large sites
  • Ruby dependency can be cumbersome
  • Less active development compared to newer alternatives

Ideal For:

  • GitHub-hosted projects and documentation
  • Personal blogs and portfolios
  • Teams familiar with Ruby
# Sample Jekyll configuration
title: My Jekyll Site
email: example@domain.com
description: >-
  A simple Jekyll site with blog posts and pages
baseurl: ""
url: "https://example.com"
github_username: username

# Build settings
markdown: kramdown
theme: minima
plugins:
  - jekyll-feed
  - jekyll-seo-tag

6. Gatsby: The GraphQL Powerhouse

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Though it has faced strong competition from Next.js and Astro, Gatsby remains a powerful choice for data-rich applications and continues to innovate in 2025.

Key Strengths:

  • GraphQL data layer: Unified data sourcing from multiple APIs
  • Image optimization: Advanced responsive image processing
  • Plugin ecosystem: Extensive marketplace of integrations
  • Performance focus: Automated performance optimizations
  • Incremental builds: Faster rebuilds for larger sites

Potential Drawbacks:

  • GraphQL adds complexity for simple projects
  • Can be resource-intensive during development
  • Steeper learning curve

Ideal For:

  • Content-rich sites pulling from multiple data sources
  • Image-heavy portfolios and e-commerce
  • Marketing sites requiring CMS integration
// Gatsby page query example
import React from "react"
import { graphql } from "gatsby"

export default function BlogPost({ data }) {
  const post = data.markdownRemark
  return (
    <div>
      <h1>{post.frontmatter.title}</h1>
      <div dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: post.html }} />
    </div>
  )
}

export const query = graphql`
  query($slug: String!) {
    markdownRemark(fields: { slug: { eq: $slug } }) {
      html
      frontmatter {
        title
        date
      }
    }
  }
`

7. SvelteKit: The Elegant Performer

Overall Score: 8.4/10

SvelteKit has gained significant traction for its elegant approach to building both static and server-rendered sites with minimal JavaScript overhead.

Key Strengths:

  • Truly reactive: No virtual DOM overhead
  • File-based routing: Intuitive page organization
  • Adapter-based deployment: Deploy anywhere
  • Small bundle sizes: Optimized client-side code
  • Progressive enhancement: Works without JavaScript

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Smaller ecosystem than React-based alternatives
  • Fewer learning resources available
  • Still relatively new in static site space

Ideal For:

  • Performance-conscious developers
  • Applications with interactive elements
  • Teams looking to minimize JavaScript overhead
// SvelteKit static page example
<script>
  export let data; // Page data loaded statically
</script>

<h1>{data.title}</h1>
<div class="content">
  {@html data.content}
</div>

<style>
  .content {
    max-width: 800px;
    margin: 0 auto;
  }
</style>

8. Hexo: The Blogger’s Choice

Overall Score: 8.0/10

Popular particularly among developers in Asia, Hexo continues to offer a focused blogging experience with excellent multilingual support.

Key Strengths:

  • Node.js powered: Familiar ecosystem for JavaScript developers
  • Blazing fast: Efficient build process
  • Internationalization: Strong multilingual support
  • GitHub integration: One-command deployment
  • Extensive theme system: Highly customizable appearance

Potential Drawbacks:

  • More focused on blogging than general-purpose sites
  • Smaller plugin ecosystem than top competitors
  • Documentation can be sparse for advanced use cases

Ideal For:

  • Developer blogs with multilingual content
  • Technical documentation with code highlighting
  • Projects requiring Asian language support
# Hexo configuration
title: Hexo Blog
subtitle: 'A modern static blog platform'
description: 'Built with Hexo for optimal performance'
author: Developer Name
language: en
timezone: 'America/New_York'

# URL
url: https://example.com
root: /
permalink: :year/:month/:day/:title/

# Directory
source_dir: source
public_dir: public
tag_dir: tags
archive_dir: archives
category_dir: categories

9. VitePress: The Documentation Specialist

Overall Score: 7.9/10

Born from the Vue ecosystem, VitePress has established itself as a top choice for technical documentation sites with its Vue integration and Vite-powered build system.

Key Strengths:

  • Vite-powered: Extremely fast hot module replacement
  • Vue 3 integration: Use Vue components in markdown
  • Dark mode support: Built-in theme switching
  • Markdown extensions: Custom containers and code highlighting
  • Search functionality: Built-in site search

Potential Drawbacks:

  • More specialized for documentation than general websites
  • Heavily tied to Vue ecosystem
  • Less flexible than general-purpose SSGs

Ideal For:

  • Technical documentation
  • Vue-based projects
  • Developer-focused content sites
// VitePress config example
export default {
  title: 'Project Documentation',
  description: 'Technical docs built with VitePress',
  themeConfig: {
    nav: [
      { text: 'Home', link: '/' },
      { text: 'Guide', link: '/guide/' },
      { text: 'API', link: '/api/' }
    ],
    sidebar: {
      '/guide/': [
        { text: 'Introduction', link: '/guide/' },
        { text: 'Getting Started', link: '/guide/getting-started' }
      ]
    }
  }
}

10. Nuxt.js: The Vue Alternative

Overall Score: 7.8/10

For the Vue ecosystem, Nuxt.js offers a compelling static site generation option with strong content handling capabilities.

Key Strengths:

  • Vue-powered: Full Vue.js integration
  • Content module: First-class Markdown handling
  • Auto-imports: Streamlined component usage
  • Image optimization: Built-in responsive images
  • SEO-friendly: Automatic metadata management

Potential Drawbacks:

  • Vue ecosystem more limited than React
  • Larger bundle sizes than some pure SSGs
  • Static generation is just one of many features

Ideal For:

  • Vue developers building content sites
  • Marketing websites requiring CMS integration
  • Projects needing both static and dynamic capabilities
// Nuxt content example
export default defineNuxtConfig({
  modules: ['@nuxt/content'],
  content: {
    highlight: {
      theme: 'github-dark'
    },
    markdown: {
      toc: {
        depth: 3,
        searchDepth: 3
      }
    }
  }
})

Choosing the Right SSG for Your Project

Selecting the ideal static site generator depends on several factors:

Consider Your Team’s Expertise

  • JavaScript developers: Next.js, Astro, or Gatsby
  • Go developers: Hugo
  • Ruby developers: Jekyll
  • Vue enthusiasts: Nuxt.js or VitePress
  • Svelte fans: SvelteKit

Project Type

  • Documentation: VitePress, Hugo, or Eleventy
  • Blog: Jekyll, Hexo, or Hugo
  • E-commerce: Gatsby or Next.js
  • Marketing site: Astro or Nuxt.js
  • Portfolio: SvelteKit or Gatsby

Performance Requirements

  • Ultra-fast builds: Hugo
  • Minimal JavaScript: Astro or Eleventy
  • Image-heavy sites: Gatsby or Next.js
  • SEO focus: Next.js or Nuxt.js

As we move through 2025, several trends are emerging in the SSG landscape:

  1. Component Islands: Pioneered by Astro, this approach of selective hydration is being adopted by more generators.

  2. AI Integration: Many SSGs now offer plugins for AI-assisted content generation and optimization.

  3. Edge Rendering: The line between static and dynamic continues to blur with edge function integration.

  4. Visual Editing: Headless CMS systems are increasingly providing visual editing experiences for statically generated sites.

  5. Web Components: Framework-agnostic component systems are gaining traction for more portable design systems.

Conclusion

The static site generator landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace. While Hugo remains the speed champion and Jekyll offers tried-and-true stability, newer entrants like Astro and SvelteKit are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with static sites.

Your choice ultimately depends on your specific requirements, team expertise, and project goals. The good news is that in 2025, the options are more powerful and diverse than ever before, giving developers unprecedented flexibility in building performant, secure, and maintainable websites.

What’s your experience with these static site generators? Have you tried any of the newer options on our list? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

This article was last updated on April 13, 2025. Technologies and rankings may change as new versions are released.