Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

Hugo

1.3K
1.2K
+ 1
206
Nanoc

4
3
+ 1
0
Add tool

Hugo vs Nanoc: What are the differences?

Introduction: Here we will discuss the key differences between Hugo and Nanoc, two popular static site generators.

  1. Template Language: Hugo uses Go's template language, whereas Nanoc uses ERB (Embedded Ruby) as its template language. This means developers familiar with Go might find Hugo's template language easier to work with, while those experienced with Ruby might prefer Nanoc's ERB.

  2. Language Support: Hugo is primarily written in Go, so it is best suited for developers comfortable with that language. Nanoc, on the other hand, is built using Ruby, making it a better choice for Ruby developers.

  3. Performance: Hugo is known for its exceptional speed, often outperforming other static site generators, including Nanoc. This makes Hugo a top choice for projects where performance is a crucial factor.

  4. Community and Ecosystem: While both Hugo and Nanoc have active communities, Hugo's community tends to be larger and more vibrant. This can be advantageous for developers seeking support, resources, and plugins for their static site projects.

  5. Use Cases: Hugo is favored for building blogs, documentation sites, and personal portfolios due to its ease of use and fast build times. On the other hand, Nanoc is more flexible and can be customized extensively, making it suitable for complex and diverse projects.

  6. Learning Curve: Due to its simplicity and straightforward design, Hugo is often considered easier to learn and use compared to Nanoc, which may have a steeper learning curve, especially for beginners in static site generation.

In Summary, Hugo and Nanoc differ in their template languages, language support, performance, community size, use cases, and learning curve.

Decisions about Hugo and Nanoc
Manuel Feller
Frontend Engineer at BI X · | 4 upvotes · 162.7K 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.

See more
Get Advice from developers at your company using StackShare Enterprise. Sign up for StackShare Enterprise.
Learn More
Pros of Hugo
Pros of Nanoc
  • 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
    Be the first to leave a pro

    Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

    Cons of Hugo
    Cons of Nanoc
    • 4
      No Plugins/Extensions
    • 2
      Template syntax not friendly
    • 1
      Quick builds
      Be the first to leave a con

      Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

      - No public GitHub repository available -

      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 Nanoc?

      It is a static-site generator, fit for building anything from a small personal blog to a large corporate website.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use Hugo?
      What companies use Nanoc?
      See which teams inside your own company are using Hugo or Nanoc.
      Sign up for StackShare EnterpriseLearn More

      Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions

      What tools integrate with Hugo?
      What tools integrate with Nanoc?

      Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions

      Blog Posts

      What are some alternatives to Hugo and Nanoc?
      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