Why I Use Hugo

Fast, easy to setup, simple and livereload by default.

After going through StaticGen, I was thinking of Jekyll, Hugo or Pelican. Jekyll because it's most popular, Hugo because it's the second new comer and Pelican because I know Python. I tried Hugo first and bump into a few issues, then tried Jekyll for an hour and realize Hugo is actually simpler and cleaner. I didn't get to try Pelican.

Pros

The following are my reasons for using Hugo:

  • Hugo is fast.
  • Easy to setup (no need development environment setup, just executable only).
  • Work well out of the box: it comes with default set of features (alias, taxonomy, rss, sitemap, etc.) without the need to install plugins.
  • The layout and workflow is pretty simple and clean.
  • It comes with a web sever and livereload by default.
  • Hugo is the 2nd most popular static site generator.

Cons

A few disadvantages of using Hugo:

  • Not familar with Go Templates increase learning and troubleshooting time significantly. I think Jinja is more flexible and powerful than Go Templates.
  • Hugo documentation is alright, but not top notch, complete or super friendly.
  • You will find out not all themes work out of the box, thus you need to learn the templates and edit them.
  • I believe Hugo doesn't support plugins (you pray all the features you need is provided by Hugo).
  • I think tools written in scripting language like Ruby, Python and JavaScript is easier to extend.

References

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✨ By Desmond Lua

A dream boy who enjoys making apps, travelling and making youtube videos. Follow me on @d_luaz

👶 Apps I built

Travelopy - discover travel places in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan.