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Hugo

1.3K
1.2K
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Statamic

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+ 1
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Hugo vs Statamic: What are the differences?

## Introduction
When choosing a content management system (CMS) for your website, it's essential to know the key differences between popular options like Hugo and Statamic to make an informed decision.

1. **Architecture**: Hugo is a static site generator, which means it builds HTML files before deploying, resulting in fast loading times. On the other hand, Statamic is a dynamic CMS that relies on a database to store content, enabling real-time updates but potentially leading to slower loading speeds.
2. **Content Workflow**: Hugo uses Markdown files to store content, which are simple and easy to manage using version control systems like Git. Conversely, Statamic utilizes a user-friendly control panel for content creation and editing, making it more suitable for non-technical users.
3. **Flexibility**: Hugo provides more flexibility in terms of customizing themes and layouts, as users have full control over the codebase. In contrast, Statamic offers a more structured approach to theming with its template and layout system, which can be limiting for advanced customization.
4. **Learning Curve**: Hugo's reliance on text-based content creation and command-line interface may have a steeper learning curve for beginners compared to Statamic's intuitive dashboard and WYSIWYG editor, making it more accessible for new users.
5. **Community Support**: Hugo boasts a large and active open-source community, providing extensive documentation, themes, and plugins for users. Statamic, while also supported by a dedicated community, may have fewer resources available due to its commercial nature.
6. **Hosting Environment**: Hosting a Hugo site is straightforward as it only requires a web server for serving static files. In contrast, hosting a Statamic site may require PHP and database support, making it potentially more complex to set up and maintain.

In Summary, understanding the differences between Hugo and Statamic can help you choose the right CMS based on your website's specific needs and requirements.

Decisions about Hugo and Statamic
Manuel Feller
Frontend Engineer at BI X · | 4 upvotes · 164.8K views

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.

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Pros of Hugo
Pros of Statamic
  • 47
    Lightning fast
  • 29
    Single Executable
  • 26
    Easy setup
  • 24
    Great development community
  • 23
    Open source
  • 13
    Write in golang
  • 8
    Not HTML only - JSON, RSS
  • 8
    Hacker mindset
  • 7
    LiveReload built in
  • 4
    Gitlab pages integration
  • 4
    Easy to customize themes
  • 4
    Very fast builds
  • 3
    Well documented
  • 3
    Fast builds
  • 3
    Easy to learn
  • 6
    No database
  • 6
    Version control your content
  • 4
    Surprising flexibility
  • 4
    It is based on Laravel
  • 3
    Easy templating
  • 2
    Great documentation
  • 2
    Too expensive for personal blog
  • 1
    Self hosting

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Cons of Hugo
Cons of Statamic
  • 4
    No Plugins/Extensions
  • 2
    Template syntax not friendly
  • 1
    Quick builds
  • 2
    Not user friendly

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What is 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.

What is Statamic?

The open source, developer & designer-first, Laravel + Git powered CMS built to make managing websites easy with Git.

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What companies use Hugo?
What companies use Statamic?
See which teams inside your own company are using Hugo or Statamic.
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What tools integrate with Statamic?

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Blog Posts

What are some alternatives to Hugo and Statamic?
Jekyll
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
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.
WordPress
The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family.
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.
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.
See all alternatives