As an infrastructure-as-code guy, I feel somewhat obliged to also have a website-as-code and practice what you preach.
The old MarcelVenema.com website lasts forever and last year I did not make many blog posts, so as a small side project during the cold February evenings I decided to give it a go. And as funny as it sounds, it is also a relaxing moment for me to compensate for the current chaotic business hours.
I asked Microsoft CoPilot what static website generator recommendations it has. CoPilot presented a shortlist of five popular options:
Jekyll: It’s Ruby-based and has native support for GitHub Pages, making it a good choice if you plan to host your site there. It’s also quite user-friendly and has a large community.
Hugo: Known for its speed, Hugo is a static site generator written in Go. It’s a bit more complex than Jekyll but offers great flexibility and performance.
Gatsby: If you’re comfortable with React, Gatsby might be a good choice. It’s JavaScript-based and offers a rich set of features for building complex sites.
Next.js: Another JavaScript-based option, Next.js is great for building static and server-rendered applications using React.
Eleventy (11ty): A simpler, more lightweight alternative to some of the others. It’s JavaScript-based and doesn’t require you to use any specific frontend framework.
I did some research, played around with Jekyll and Hugo, and ultimately decided to use Hugo. I like the concept of single file binary, Hugo is written in Go. However, CoPilot mentions a steeper learning curve than Jekyll. Copilot also mentions that Jekyll has a better integration with GitHub. I also discovered that Jekyll was created by Tom Preston-Werner, the co-founder of GitHub. Tom left the firm in 2014.
A disadvantage of using Hugo is the number of design templates, currently there are only a couple of hunderd. To go forward, I picked one and I will change the design and template on my way.
In the next couple of weeks, I will move all my blog articles to the new website. Along this path, I certainly will have some interesting challenges with Hugo, which I, of course, will blog about.
If you have any questions, chat, or want to collaborate, feel free to contact me or send a message in the (soon to be added) comment section.