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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Static Site Generators
  5. Hexo vs Jekyll

Hexo vs Jekyll

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Jekyll
Jekyll
Stacks2.0K
Followers1.4K
Votes230
GitHub Stars51.0K
Forks10.2K
Hexo
Hexo
Stacks358
Followers386
Votes70
GitHub Stars41.0K
Forks5.0K

Hexo vs Jekyll: What are the differences?

Introduction

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that allows easy formatting of web content. It can be used to create static websites using static site generators like Hexo and Jekyll. In this task, we will format the provided content as Markdown code and provide the key differences between Hexo and Jekyll.

  1. Installation: Hexo and Jekyll differ in their installation process. Hexo requires Node.js and Git to be installed on the system, while Jekyll requires Ruby and RubyGems.
  2. Default Language: Hexo is primarily based on JavaScript, making it favorable for developers with a background in JavaScript. On the other hand, Jekyll is based on Ruby, making it more suitable for developers familiar with Ruby.
  3. Themes and Plugins: Hexo provides a wide range of themes and plugins, allowing users to easily customize the appearance and functionality of their websites. Jekyll also offers themes and plugins, but the selection is relatively smaller compared to Hexo.
  4. Performance: Hexo is known to have better performance compared to Jekyll. This is mainly due to the fact that Hexo generates the static site content during the build process, resulting in faster page load times.
  5. Ecosystem and Community Support: Jekyll has a larger and more mature ecosystem and community compared to Hexo. This means that there are more resources, documentation, and community support available for Jekyll users.
  6. Hosting Options: Jekyll websites can be hosted on GitHub Pages for free, making it an attractive choice for developers who want a simple hosting solution. Hexo, on the other hand, does not have the same level of integration with GitHub Pages and requires additional steps for hosting.

In summary, Hexo and Jekyll differ in terms of installation requirements, default languages, availability of themes and plugins, performance, ecosystem and community support, and hosting options.

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Advice on Jekyll, Hexo

Arnaud
Arnaud

Mar 25, 2022

Needs adviceonGatsbyGatsbyGitHubGitHubAmazon S3Amazon S3

I have been building a website with Gatsby (for a small group of volunteers). I track it in GitHub and push it to Amazon S3.

I am satisfied with it as a single user; however, I would like to get non-technical teammates to be able to post Markdown blog posts. I tried to teach them to add mdx files, git push, gastby build, and publish with gatsby-plugin-s3, but I am getting a fair amount of resistance :).

So I wonder if there are tools, preferably using Node.js, that allow multi-user blog authors a la wordpress, i.e. with an interface for non technical bloggers, but producing static/pre-rendered web pages.

(PS: I am considering having a node/express.js server where they could upload their mdx file and the server would re-build push and publish for them, without having them install anything, but I'd like to know if something already exists before jumping into this endeavor)

66.9k views66.9k
Comments
Manuel
Manuel

Frontend Engineer at BI X

Jul 22, 2020

Decided

As a Frontend Developer I wanted something simple to generate static websites with technology I am familiar with. GatsbyJS was in the stack I am familiar with, does not need any other languages / package managers and allows quick content deployment in pure HTML or Markdown (what you prefer for a project). It also does not require you to understand a theming engine if you need a custom design.

178k views178k
Comments
Kazim
Kazim

Founder & Developer at Devkind

May 13, 2020

Needs advice

Fastest and quickest way to do static HTML site which is extremely fast? Do you consider above tools or is there anything more quicker or better? This is just a one time one pager site for now, no backend required. I might have such projects in future, having something to get familiar with which can immediately come into action to develop would be great advise!

53.5k views53.5k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Jekyll
Jekyll
Hexo
Hexo

Think of Jekyll as a file-based CMS, without all the complexity. Jekyll takes your content, renders Markdown and Liquid templates, and spits out a complete, static website ready to be served by Apache, Nginx or another web server. Jekyll is the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host sites right from your GitHub repositories.

Hexo is a fast, simple and powerful blog framework. It parses your posts with Markdown or other render engine and generates static files with the beautiful theme. All of these just take seconds.

Simple - No more databases, comment moderation, or pesky updates to install—just your content.;Static - Markdown (or Textile), Liquid, HTML & CSS go in. Static sites come out ready for deployment.;Blog-aware - Permalinks, categories, pages, posts, and custom layouts are all first-class citizens here.
Blazing Fast - Node.js brings you incredible generating speed. Hundreds of files take only seconds to build.;Markdown Support - All features of GitHub Flavored Markdown are supported. You can even use most Octopress plugins in Hexo.;One-Command Deployment - You only need one command to deploy your site to GitHub Pages, Heroku or other sites.;Various Plugins - Hexo has a powerful plugin system. You can install more plugins for Jade, CoffeeScript plugins.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
51.0K
GitHub Stars
41.0K
GitHub Forks
10.2K
GitHub Forks
5.0K
Stacks
2.0K
Stacks
358
Followers
1.4K
Followers
386
Votes
230
Votes
70
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 74
    Github pages integration
  • 54
    Open source
  • 37
    It's slick, customisable and hackerish
  • 24
    Easy to deploy
  • 23
    Straightforward cms for the hacker mindset
Cons
  • 4
    Build time increases exponentially as site grows
  • 2
    Lack of developments lately
  • 1
    Og doesn't work with postings dynamically
Pros
  • 18
    Ease of deployment
  • 13
    Uses NodeJS and npm
  • 12
    Easy GitHub Pages publishing
  • 10
    Powerful templating
  • 7
    Useful tools and plugins
Integrations
No integrations available
TypeScript
TypeScript
Netlify
Netlify
CoffeeScript
CoffeeScript
Heroku
Heroku
Node.js
Node.js
GitHub Pages
GitHub Pages
Azure Search
Azure Search

What are some alternatives to Jekyll, Hexo?

Hugo

Hugo

Hugo is a static site generator written in Go. It is optimized for speed, easy use and configurability. Hugo takes a directory with content and templates and renders them into a full html website. Hugo makes use of markdown files with front matter for meta data.

Gatsby

Gatsby

Gatsby lets you build blazing fast sites with your data, whatever the source. Liberate your sites from legacy CMSs and fly into the future.

Middleman

Middleman

Middleman is a command-line tool for creating static websites using all the shortcuts and tools of the modern web development environment.

Gridsome

Gridsome

Build websites using latest web tech tools that developers love - Vue.js, GraphQL and Webpack. Get hot-reloading and all the power of Node.js. Gridsome makes building websites fun again.

Pelican

Pelican

Pelican is a static site generator that supports Markdown and reST syntax. Write your weblog entries directly with your editor of choice (vim!) in reStructuredText or Markdown.

DocPad

DocPad

Empower your website frontends with layouts, meta-data, pre-processors (markdown, jade, coffeescript, etc.), partials, skeletons, file watching, querying, and an amazing plugin system. DocPad will streamline your web development process allowing you to craft full-featured websites quicker than ever before.

Metalsmith

Metalsmith

In Metalsmith, all of the logic is handled by plugins. You simply chain them together. Since everything is a plugin, the core library is actually just an abstraction for manipulating a directory of files.

11ty

11ty

A simpler static site generator. An alternative to Jekyll. Written in JavaScript. Transforms a directory of templates (of varying types) into HTML. Works with HTML, Markdown, Liquid, Nunjucks, Handlebars, Mustache, EJS, Haml, Pug, and JavaScript Template Literals.

MkDocs

MkDocs

It builds completely static HTML sites that you can host on GitHub pages, Amazon S3, or anywhere else you choose. There's a stack of good looking themes available. The built-in dev-server allows you to preview your documentation as you're writing it. It will even auto-reload and refresh your browser whenever you save your changes.

VuePress

VuePress

A minimalistic static site generator with a Vue-powered theming system, and a default theme optimized for writing technical documentation. It was created to support the documentation needs of Vue's own sub projects.

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