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  1. Stackups
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  4. Static Site Generators
  5. Jekyll vs Slate

Jekyll vs Slate

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Jekyll
Jekyll
Stacks2.0K
Followers1.4K
Votes230
GitHub Stars51.0K
Forks10.2K
Slate
Slate
Stacks101
Followers130
Votes8

Jekyll vs Slate: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Jekyll and Slate are popular tools used for building websites. Despite serving the same purpose, they have key differences that set them apart. Below are the main differences between Jekyll and Slate.

  1. Static vs. Dynamic: Jekyll is a static site generator, which means it generates HTML files during the build process, resulting in faster loading times and easier hosting. On the other hand, Slate is a dynamic documentation tool that uses React to generate pages on the fly, providing a more interactive user experience but requiring server-side rendering.

  2. Theme Customization: Jekyll offers a wide range of themes that can be easily customized, making it suitable for those looking for a quick and straightforward website setup. In contrast, Slate provides fewer theme options but allows for more granular customization, making it ideal for users who want complete control over the design and functionality of their website.

  3. Community Support: Jekyll has a large and active community of developers and users, which means there are plenty of resources, plugins, and templates available for customization and problem-solving. While Slate has a smaller community, it is growing rapidly and offers a more specialized focus on documentation-related features, making it a great choice for projects that require robust documentation capabilities.

  4. Hosting Options: Jekyll websites can be easily hosted on platforms like GitHub Pages, making it a convenient choice for developers who prefer simplicity and integration with version control systems. On the other hand, Slate requires a server environment to run, which may involve more complex hosting setups and maintenance requirements.

  5. Ease of Use: Jekyll is known for its simplicity and ease of use, with a minimal configuration required to get started. In comparison, Slate may have a steeper learning curve due to its dynamic nature and React-based architecture, making it more suitable for users with prior experience in web development.

In Summary, Jekyll is a static site generator with a strong community support and simple hosting options, while Slate is a dynamic documentation tool with advanced customization capabilities and a specialized focus on documentation features.

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Advice on Jekyll, Slate

Manuel
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
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!

53.6k views53.6k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Jekyll
Jekyll
Slate
Slate

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.

Slate helps you create beautiful API documentation. Think of it as an intelligent, responsive documentation template for your API.

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.
Clean, intuitive design — with Slate, the description of your API is on the left side of your documentation, and all the code examples are on the right side. Inspired by Stripe's and Paypal's API docs. Slate is responsive, so it looks great on tablets, phones, and even print.;Everything on a single page — gone are the days where your users had to search through a million pages to find what they wanted. Slate puts the entire documentation on a single page. We haven't sacrificed linkability, though. As you scroll, your browser's hash will update to the nearest header, so linking to a particular point in the documentation is still natural and easy.;Slate is just Markdown — when you write docs with Slate, you're just writing Markdown, which makes it simple to edit and understand. Everything is written in Markdown — even the code samples are just Markdown code blocks!;Write code samples in multiple languages — if your API has bindings in multiple programming languages, you easily put in tabs to switch between them. In your document, you'll distinguish different languages by specifying the language name at the top of each code block, just like with Github Flavored Markdown!;Out-of-the-box syntax highlighting for almost 60 languages, no configuration required.;Automatic, smoothly scrolling table of contents on the far left of the page. As you scroll, it displays your current position in the document. It's fast, too. We're using Slate at TripIt to build documentation for our new API, where our table of contents has over 180 entries. We've made sure that the performance remains excellent, even for larger documents.;Let your users update your documentation for you — by default, your Slate-generated documentation is hosted in a public Github repository. Not only does this mean you get free hosting for your docs with Github Pages, but it also makes it's simple for other developers to make pull requests to your docs if they find typos or other problems. Of course, if you don't want to, you're welcome to not use Github and host your docs elsewhere!
Statistics
GitHub Stars
51.0K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
10.2K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
2.0K
Stacks
101
Followers
1.4K
Followers
130
Votes
230
Votes
8
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
  • 5
    Easy setup
  • 3
    Simple to Use

What are some alternatives to Jekyll, Slate?

Postman

Postman

It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.

Swagger UI

Swagger UI

Swagger UI is a dependency-free collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation and sandbox from a Swagger-compliant API

Hugo

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

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

Apiary

Apiary

It takes more than a simple HTML page to thrill your API users. The right tools take weeks of development. Weeks that apiary.io saves.

Hexo

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.

ReadMe.io

ReadMe.io

It is an easy-to-use tool to help you build out documentation! Each documentation site that you publish is a project where there is space for documentation, interactive API reference guides, a changelog, and much more.

Middleman

Middleman

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

Gridsome

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.

Docusaurus

Docusaurus

Docusaurus is a project for easily building, deploying, and maintaining open source project websites.

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