Jekyll vs React-Static

Overview

Jekyll

Stacks2.0K

Followers1.4K

Votes230

GitHub Stars51.0K

Forks10.2K

React-Static

Stacks46

Followers114

Votes3

Jekyll vs React-Static: What are the differences?

Differences in Rendering Approach: Jekyll takes a static site generator approach, where the content is built beforehand and served as plain HTML files. React-Static, on the other hand, employs a client-side rendering approach using React components, where the content is dynamically rendered on the client's browser. This allows React-Static to provide interactive and real-time updates, while Jekyll is more suitable for simpler static websites without complex interactions.
JavaScript Dependency: React-Static heavily relies on JavaScript to render and update the content, making it a powerful tool for dynamic web applications. Jekyll, on the other hand, does not have JavaScript as a requirement since it generates static HTML files. This difference means that React-Static offers more flexibility and interactivity but may require more technical know-how to work with.
Server-Side Rendering: React-Static has built-in support for server-side rendering (SSR), allowing the initial content rendering to happen on the server before being sent to the client's browser. Jekyll does not have native SSR capabilities since it is focused on static site generation. SSR enables faster loading times and better SEO performance for React-Static sites compared to Jekyll.
Data Fetching: React-Static provides an out-of-the-box solution for data fetching, allowing developers to retrieve data from APIs or other sources easily. Jekyll, on the other hand, requires manual data integration using plugins or custom scripts, making data fetching a more involved process. React-Static's built-in data fetching capabilities simplify the development process and make it easier to create dynamic content-driven websites.
Hot Module Replacement: React-Static comes with Hot Module Replacement (HMR) support, which allows instant updates to the website during development without full page reloads. This feature enables faster iteration times and a smoother development experience. Jekyll does not have native HMR support since it generates static files, requiring a browser refresh each time changes are made.
React Ecosystem: React-Static benefits from the extensive React ecosystem, including a wide range of libraries, components, and tools that can be easily integrated into projects. Jekyll, being agnostic to front-end frameworks, does not have the same level of integration with the React ecosystem. This difference means that React-Static users have access to a larger variety of pre-built solutions and can leverage the robustness of the React community.

In summary, Jekyll is a static site generator focused on simplicity and compatibility, while React-Static is a powerful tool for creating dynamic web applications using React's rendering capabilities. React-Static offers client-side rendering, server-side rendering, built-in data fetching, HMR support, and integration with the React ecosystem, providing developers with more flexibility and interactivity.

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Advice on Jekyll, React-Static

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

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	React-Static
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.	React-Static is a next-gen static site generator for React. Finally, you can build a website like you do any other React App. There's no special CMS, query language, or crazy lifecycle hooks. Just good old React producing an amazing SEO-ready, user experience driven, progressively enhanced website. The effort is minimal, but the benefits are not!
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.	React. Enough said;Blazing fast performance;Data Agnostic. Feed your site data from anywhere, however you want;Built for SEO, by SEO professionals;React-first developer experience;Painless project setup & migration;Supports 99.9% of the React ecosystem. Including CSS-in-JS libraries, custom Query layers like GraphQL, and even Redux!;Aggressive and flexible reloading
Statistics
GitHub Stars 51.0K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 10.2K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 2.0K	Stacks 46
Followers 1.4K	Followers 114
Votes 230	Votes 3
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 2 GraphQL 1 All the benefits of a static website + React+GraphQL Cons 1 GraphQL
Integrations
No integrations available	React

What are some alternatives to Jekyll, React-Static?

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

Hexo

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.

Middleman

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

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 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

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

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

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

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.

Related Comparisons

Jekyll vs React-Static: What are the differences?

Differences in Rendering Approach: Jekyll takes a static site generator approach, where the content is built beforehand and served as plain HTML files. React-Static, on the other hand, employs a client-side rendering approach using React components, where the content is dynamically rendered on the client's browser. This allows React-Static to provide interactive and real-time updates, while Jekyll is more suitable for simpler static websites without complex interactions.
JavaScript Dependency: React-Static heavily relies on JavaScript to render and update the content, making it a powerful tool for dynamic web applications. Jekyll, on the other hand, does not have JavaScript as a requirement since it generates static HTML files. This difference means that React-Static offers more flexibility and interactivity but may require more technical know-how to work with.
Server-Side Rendering: React-Static has built-in support for server-side rendering (SSR), allowing the initial content rendering to happen on the server before being sent to the client's browser. Jekyll does not have native SSR capabilities since it is focused on static site generation. SSR enables faster loading times and better SEO performance for React-Static sites compared to Jekyll.
Data Fetching: React-Static provides an out-of-the-box solution for data fetching, allowing developers to retrieve data from APIs or other sources easily. Jekyll, on the other hand, requires manual data integration using plugins or custom scripts, making data fetching a more involved process. React-Static's built-in data fetching capabilities simplify the development process and make it easier to create dynamic content-driven websites.
Hot Module Replacement: React-Static comes with Hot Module Replacement (HMR) support, which allows instant updates to the website during development without full page reloads. This feature enables faster iteration times and a smoother development experience. Jekyll does not have native HMR support since it generates static files, requiring a browser refresh each time changes are made.
React Ecosystem: React-Static benefits from the extensive React ecosystem, including a wide range of libraries, components, and tools that can be easily integrated into projects. Jekyll, being agnostic to front-end frameworks, does not have the same level of integration with the React ecosystem. This difference means that React-Static users have access to a larger variety of pre-built solutions and can leverage the robustness of the React community.

Jekyll vs React-Static

Overview