Don’t worry if you need to create a static site for your upcoming project but aren’t sure which static site generator to choose; I’ve rounded up some of the best static site generators that can produce the best responsive static sites for your project.
A static website can be created with many benefits for developers. In comparison to dynamic websites, it is firstly more affordable, quicker, and simpler to maintain. Additionally, static site generators are always helpful for building informational websites, portfolio websites, tutorial websites, websites showcasing your content, and many other types of websites.
Over the past couple of years, static site generators have become incredibly popular among developers. The surge in the use of static site generators has many causes.
Therefore, let’s first define a static site and discuss the benefits of using a static site generator before moving on to the list of static site generators.
What does a static site generator do?
A Static Site generator is, to put it simply, a tool that turns provided content sources, components, and templates into HTML pages. Using those pre-built HTML pages rather than creating each page from scratch makes it simpler for developers.
These HTML pages can therefore be created more quickly and load more quickly in the user’s browser. SSGs are an alternative to Content Management Systems (CMS), which create webpages, manage content, and apply templates to your website.
With the help of a static website generator, you can make quick, visually appealing websites without having to deal with the limitations that once hampered marketers and developers.
The following are benefits of using a static site generator:
- Greater Performance.
- Customisation Potential.
- Lighter Back-end.
- Reduced reliance on the server side.
- numerous others, including data protection.
What exactly is a static site?
A static site is a website that uses pre-written HTML, JavaScript, or CSS code and has static content on its pages. When a browser requests one of these web pages, it is already pre-rendered on the server and delivered to it. Consequently, it causes the pages to load more quickly.
It only serves content that has already been pre-rendered on the server; it does not alter content in response to user input. Because of this, static websites are independent of any one user, in contrast to dynamic websites, which render pages in response to user requests.
Your front-end interface can be more flexible thanks to the static site, which also improves the functionality of your entire website. When the sites are straightforward and the site’s content is reliable, you might think about using simple static sites. It is inexpensive, light, and swift as well.
Benefits of having a static website.
- Simple to Develop.
- SEO Friendly
- Perfect for Small Websites.
- Hosting is less expensive.
- Effective from a financial standpoint.
- Fast loading time.
- Secure & Simple to optimise.
- flexibility, among many others.
1. Gatsby
Gatsby is an open source framework for developing static websites and web applications that combines the features of React, GraphQL, and Webpack. While GraphQL powers the site’s data layer, React js is used to build the site’s user interface.
Additionally, it combines static site generation, deferred static generation, and intelligent page rendering to load only the content that is crucial to your website. This implies that you will receive a lightning-fast website with excellent performance.
React.js makes it easy to complete the user interface, and GraphQL makes it simple to integrate data from CMSs like WordPress, Drupal, a plain markdown file, a CSV, or any other CMS into your website.
Additionally, it allows you to expand its functionality by using a variety of plugins.
2. Next.js
Next.js is one of the most well-known and rapidly developing web development frameworks. You can build a quick web application with the help of the Web application building blocks using this Open Source Static Site generator and React framework.
With features like hybrid static and server rendering, TypeScript support, smart bundling, route pre-fetching, and many more, Next.js gives you the best developer experience.
Pre-rendering is supported by default. This indicates that Next.js generates HTML for each page in advance rather than relying solely on JavaScript running on the client. It may therefore lead to improved performance and SEO.
Additionally, Next.js offers an integrated TypeScript experience with zero configuration setup, built-in types for Pages, APIs, and more.
3. Astro Build
To build quick and content-focused websites, developers can use Astro, an all-in-one web framework and static site generator. It is appropriate for websites like blogs, portfolios, publishing sites, marketing sites, and some eCommerce sites, among others.
At this time, server-side rendering is used more frequently than client-side rendering. The same rule now holds true for all of the well-known server-side frameworks, including PHP, WordPress, Laravel, and others.
Aside from this, you can avoid learning a second server-side language because the static site generator is so simple to use.
Since Astro is Fast by default, content-focused websites benefit from its strong performance.
4. Hugo
Hugo is a go-based, quick and contemporary static site generator designed to produce quick websites. Only when a user creates or updates the content does SSG dynamically build a page. Hugo is made to give both website authors and visitors to your website the best possible viewing and writing experiences.
Hugo allows you to create incredibly quick and secure websites that can be hosted anywhere. Furthermore, it also functions well with CDNs. Hugo sites can also function without a database or reliance on pricey runtimes like Ruby, Python, or PHP.
Hugo is the best open source static site generator if you’re looking to create a blog, a company site, a portfolio site, documentation, a single landing page, or a website with thousands of pages.
5. Jekyll
Ruby-based static site generator Jekyll is free and open-source. You can create websites that are feature-rich and simple to use with its help. Like Drupal and WordPress, Jekyll can create all the content at once, eliminating the need to wait for user input.
It uses layouts to produce a static website from text written in your preferred markup language. The site’s appearance and feel, URLs, the information shown on the page, and more can all be changed. Jekyll has a few prerequisites, including i. GCC, Make, Ruby version 2.5, and RubyGems.
It supports the .md extension, allowing you to write pages in Markdown that will automatically convert to HTML when built. You can group your pages into sub-folders if you have a lot of them. When your site builds, the _site folder will contain the same sub-folders that were used to group your pages in the source of your project.
You can generate unique, site-specific content with Jekyll’s plugin system and hooks.
6. Harp
Harp is a free and open-source static web server that serves HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as well as Jade, Markdown, EJS, Less, Stylus, Sass, and CoffeeScript. Your unique data is simply inserted into templates while supporting the layout/partial paradigm and flexible metadata.
Harp will make your project significantly simpler if you are using pre-processors to create HTML, CSS, or JavaScript. Markdown, EJS, Jade, LESS, Sass, Stylus, and CoffeeScript are supported by Harp.
7. JigSaw
With the help of Laravel’s Blade and JigSaw, you can build straightforward static websites. Because it works with Laravel Mix, you can create your CSS and Javascript assets in the same manner that you do with Laravel.
There are 2 Started templates in it. One is for a blog, and the other is open source documentation that you can personalise with your content as necessary. Jigsaw offers robust features that function with collections or groups of related pages.
Jigsaw-built websites only use static HTML and Javascript, making them easy and affordable to host and deploy. To deploy your sites on hosts like GitHub Pages, Netlify, Amazon S3, and Manually, refer to their comprehensive documentation for more information.
8. Nuxt.js
This static site generator is for you if you’re a Vue developer. An open-source Server-Side Rendering framework based on Vue is called Nuxt. It is the most user-friendly Vue Framework because it combines the strength of Vue with server-side rendering.
During the build phase, you can render your application using Nuxt Static Site generation and deploy it to any static hosting service, including Netlify, GitHub Pages, Vercel, etc. As a result, your application can be deployed without a server.
Nuxt helps create responsive and SEO-friendly websites and eliminates the need for servers by pre-rendering all pages, including HTML. Furthermore, using Nuxt eliminates the need for plugins or any other CMS system to improve user experience. You can customise your web app with Nuxt to fit your needs and level of creativity.
Additionally, it includes a few crucial parts that you may find helpful as you build your applications. You don’t need to import these components in order to use them because they are accessible everywhere.
9. Docusaurus
Another static site generator that can quickly produce attractive documentation sites is Docusaurus. It can be used to create interactive, quick side client navigation single-page applications that take advantage of the React framework’s capabilities.
Additionally, it offers a vast array of documentation features needed for any web app. Additionally, it can be used to build any type of website, including blogs, landing pages for advertising campaigns, and many others.
TypeScript theme components are supported by Docusaurus for both creation and use. Using the –typescript flag, you can immediately initialise a site with full TypeScript support if the init template offers a TypeScript variant.
React Admin Dashboard Template is a fantastic option if you’re working on React projects and want to give them a boost.
10. Gridsome
In order to create static generated websites and apps, Gridsome, a JamStack Framework powered by Vue, was created. If you are not familiar with JamStack, it is a framework that enables you to create secure, quick websites that are served directly from a CDN after being pre-rendered.
Presently, Girdsome generates static HTML that, when loaded in a browser, hydrates into a Vue SPA. As a result, both static and dynamic sites can be generated using it. Only essential HTML, CSS, and JavaScript are loaded first in static Progressive Web Applications that it generates.
Additionally, the remaining pages are then pre-fetched so users can navigate extremely quickly without having to reload the page, even when offline. With Gridsome, Vue Single File Components are used. In order to make your projects simpler to maintain and test, as well as your components more reusable, you can add HTML, JavaScript, and CSS in the same file.
