WordPress vs Static Site Generators

When I first started blogging I built my web site on Moveable Type. After a couple of false starts I finally joined the rest of the blogosphere on WordPress. I have been nagging @n33co (aka AJ) to finish the WordPress templates he is working on that match his outstanding html5 site templates. AJ suggested that I could wait until he has time to finish his WordPress templates or I could try Jekyll, a static site generator (SSG). Jekyll looked like more work to set up than I was willing to do. Further investigation led me to Hugo. Hugo looked so simple I decided to give it a try.

Hugo claims to make web sites fun again, shifting the focus away from convoluted configuration of complex content management systems, back to html, css and the creation of content. Installing Hugo on my Kubuntu 14.10 laptop took less than 10 minutes. Getting to the place where I was learning how Hugo worked took another 5 minutes. So far it has been very simple, very fast, and very light weight.

I have been using Hugo for an hour or so. I like the simplicity; I like the idea of being able to produce my entire web site, blog included, using only basic tools instead of a complex php/perl based web application. The Hugo engine resides on my computer. The only thing that needs to live on the web host is the html, css, and javascript that drives the site. The resulting web site is extremely fast, regardless of the device being used to access it.

Next I am looking forward to incorporating Hugo into AJ’s miniport web site template which will finally bring my blog into the same design as the rest of smittie.com.

[The Hugo site is here.]