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Decisions about Gatsby, Jekyll, and Metalsmith
Manuel Feller
Frontend Engineer at BI X · | 4 upvotes · 170K 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.
Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
Learn MorePros of Gatsby
Pros of Jekyll
Pros of Metalsmith
Pros of Gatsby
- Generated websites are super fast28
- Fast16
- GraphQL15
- Progressive Web Apps generation10
- Easy to connect with lots of CMS via official plugins9
- Reusable components (React)9
- Allows to use markdown files as articles7
- Static-sites5
- All the benefits of a static website + React+GraphQL5
- Images5
- List of starters as base for new project4
- Easy to connect with Drupal via official plugin3
- Open source3
- Gitlab pages integration1
- Incremental Build1
Pros of Jekyll
- Github pages integration74
- Open source54
- It's slick, customisable and hackerish37
- Easy to deploy24
- Straightforward cms for the hacker mindset23
- Gitlab pages integration7
- Best for blogging5
- Low maintenance2
- Easy to integrate localization2
- Huge plugins ecosystem1
- Authoring freedom and simplicity1
Pros of Metalsmith
- Plugability9
- Easy to install, easy to hack, easy to deploy4
- Really works hard to be simple2
- Chain plugins like a file processing pipe1
- CI: push to github, auto-deploy to netlifly (free)1
- Build any kind of website1
- Use any templating engine1
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Cons of Gatsby
Cons of Jekyll
Cons of Metalsmith
Cons of Gatsby
- No ssr7
- Documentation isn't complete.4
- Very slow builds3
- Flash of unstyled content issues2
- For-profit2
- Slow builds2
- Plugin driven development1
- Difficult maintenance1
- Problematic between develop and build commands1
- Too many dependencies1
- Difficult debugging1
Cons of Jekyll
- Build time increases exponentially as site grows4
- Lack of developments lately2
- Og doesn't work with postings dynamically1
Cons of Metalsmith
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- No public GitHub repository available -
What is 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.
What is 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.
What is 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.
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What companies use Jekyll?
What companies use Metalsmith?
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What tools integrate with Gatsby?
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What tools integrate with Metalsmith?
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What are some alternatives to Gatsby, Jekyll, and Metalsmith?
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.
Next.js
Next.js is a minimalistic framework for server-rendered React applications.
React
Lots of people use React as the V in MVC. Since React makes no assumptions about the rest of your technology stack, it's easy to try it out on a small feature in an existing project.
Create React App
Create React apps with no build configuration.
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.