Static Sites vs WordPress: Choosing the Right Static Site Generator - Part 2

This is Part 2 of my series on rebuilding my blog with static site generators. If you missed it, check out Part 1: Static Sites vs WordPress: Rebuilding My Personal Blog After a Hack where I explain why I moved away from WordPress after getting hacked twice.

When I decided to rebuild my blog as a static site, the first question I had to answer was: which static site generator should I use? There are quite a few out there, and while they all follow the same principle (taking text files and templates and turning them into a fast, static website), they vary in speed, ecosystem, and how much effort they expect from you.

I looked at several options before settling on Hugo, and I want to walk you through that thought process.

The Contenders

Here are the main static site generators I considered:

Jekyll: The original big player in this space. It powers GitHub Pages by default and has been around for more than a decade. It’s written in Ruby, which makes it less appealing to me personally, but it has a solid community and tons of themes.

Eleventy (11ty): A lightweight, JavaScript-based generator. Developers love it because it’s flexible and doesn’t lock you into a specific framework.

Astro: A newer option that has gained a lot of attention. It’s designed for content-heavy sites, and it can mix and match components from React, Vue, or Svelte if you need them. It’s powerful, but also more complex.

Next.js (static export mode): Technically a full framework for React apps, but it can export static HTML. This is overkill for a blog, but it’s worth mentioning because a lot of teams use it for marketing sites.

Hugo: Written in Go, it’s known for being incredibly fast. A large blog with hundreds of posts can be rebuilt in milliseconds. It comes as a single binary, so setup is painless.

Why I Chose Hugo

For me, Hugo checked all the boxes:

Speed

Hugo is ridiculously fast. When you save a file, your site rebuilds almost instantly. That matters more than I expected, because it makes writing and testing changes smooth and frustration-free.

Simplicity

It’s one download, one command, and you’re ready to go. I didn’t want to set up Node.js environments or manage dependencies just to publish a blog post. Hugo keeps it lean.

Fits Into My Existing Workflow

I found that Hugo plays nicely with the tools I already use every day: VSCode, Cursor, Git, even AI helpers like ChatGPT. That means I can focus on writing and shipping content without changing the way I work.

Themes and Flexibility

The Hugo ecosystem isn’t as massive as WordPress, but it’s solid. There are themes for almost every use case, and customizing them doesn’t feel like wrestling with someone else’s decisions.

Future Proofing

Hugo is mature, well maintained, and widely used. It feels like a safe bet for the long run.

Who Should Choose What

My recommendation isn’t that Hugo is the best tool for everyone. It’s about matching the tool to the use case.

If you want the simplest path to a free blog on GitHub Pages, Jekyll still makes sense.

If you’re a JavaScript developer who wants total control and flexibility, Eleventy is great.

If you want to combine static content with modern front-end frameworks, Astro or Next.js might be the right call.

If you want a fast, no-nonsense blog or documentation site, Hugo is hard to beat.

The Bottom Line

Choosing a static site generator is like choosing any other tool: the “best” one is the one that fits your needs, skills, and workflow. For my personal blog, Hugo’s combination of speed, simplicity, and reliability made it the clear winner.

The real test isn’t which generator has the most features or the biggest community. It’s which one gets out of your way and lets you focus on what matters: creating and sharing content.

What’s your experience with static site generators? Have you tried Hugo or any of the others I mentioned? I’d love to hear your thoughts and recommendations.

Next up: In Part 3, I’ll dive into the actual migration process and share some lessons learned from moving content from WordPress to Hugo. Subscribe to stay updated!