Comparison with other static site generators
This table was compiled in late October 2020 (Soupault 2.1.0, Jekyll 4.1.1, Hugo 0.76, Zola 0.12.2). If you spot outdated or incorrect information, let me know!
| Hugo | Zola | Jekyll | Soupault | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dependency-free | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Extensibility | Turing-complete template processor, shortcodes. | Ruby plugins. | Lua plugins. | |
| Page formats | Markdown, Org Mode (built-in); AsciiDoc, RST, Pandoc (external helper, hardcoded). | Markdown | Markdown (built-in), any (via convertor plugins). | HTML (built-in), any (via page preprocessors). |
| Markdown processor | GoldMark, BlackFriday | pulldown-cmark | kramdown (built-in), any (via plugins) | Any (via page preprocessors) |
| Config format | TOML, YAML, JSON | TOML | TOML, YAML | TOML |
| Syntax highlighting | Built-in (Chroma), hardcoded syntax rules. | Built-in, supports external syntax files. | Built-in (Rouge), any (via plugins). | No built-in, any (via element preprocessors). |
| Pagination | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Multilingual sites | Yes | Yes | Plugins exist | No |
| Taxonomies | Blog (built-in), extensible | No built-in, extensible | ||
| Front matter | YAML, JSON, TOML, Org | TOML | YAML | None. Metadata is extracted from HTML using CSS selectors, similar to microformats. |
| Theming | Requires a compatible theme. | Any HTML page can be a “theme”. | ||
| Can work with existing websites | No | Yes, supports an HTML post-processor mode | ||
| Table of contents | Markdown and AsciiDoc only, black box. | Markdown only, ToC datastructure available to templates. | No built-in, various plugins available. | Any format (generated from HTML headings after preprocessing), configurable. ToC datastructure is also available to Lua plugins. |
| Footnotes | Markdown only, manual. | Markdown built-in, various plugins. | LaTeX-like, automatic back links, configurable. | |