---
title:                                  Static Site Generators
tagline:                                Top Open Source SSGs
#last_modified:                         2023-01-01

categories:                             [ Jekyll, Featured ]
tags:                                   [ Generators ]

image:
  path:                                 /assets/images/modules/attics/machine-generator-1920x1280.jpg
  width:                                1920
  height:                               1280
  alt:                                  Site Generators

group:                                  Featured
series:                                 Featured

comments:                               false
regenerate:                             false

resources:                              [ animate, lightbox ]
resource_options:
  - attic:
      padding_top:                      600
      slides:
        - url:                          /assets/images/modules/attics/machine-generator-1920x1280.jpg
          alt:                          Photo by Isis Françal on Unsplash
          badge:
            type:                       unsplash
            author:                     Isis França
            href:                       https://unsplash.com/@isisfra
---

// Page Initializer
// =============================================================================
// Enable the Liquid Preprocessor
:page-liquid:

// Set (local) page attributes here
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
// :page--attr:                         <attr-value>

// Place an excerpt at the most top position
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[role="dropcap"]
J1 Template is a Bootstrap V5 website template for the static
site generator Jekyll.
This article highlights the top open source projects providing static site
generators (SSG) in many different programming languages. You'll find Jekyll
one of them. Look at the top open-source SSGs if a full-blown CMS is needed
for your project.

excerpt__end

//  Load Liquid procedures
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
{% capture load_attributes %}themes/{{site.template.name}}/procedures/global/attributes_loader.proc{%endcapture%}

// Load page attributes
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
{% include {{load_attributes}} scope="all" %}


// Page content
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

// Include sub-documents (if any)
// -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
== Dynamic page access

// [role="mb-3"]
// image::/assets/images/posts/featured/markus-spiske-2.jpg[{{page.title}}]

A typical CMS-driven website works by building each and every page
*dynamically*. That means fetching the content from a database to pass them
over to a template system (engine) to load the page content, adding the
required structure information (e.g., CSS styles) and Javascript components if
needed. This means every page is assembled *on demand*.

.Accessing scheme for a CMS (dynamic web)
lightbox::kickstart-wiad--dynamic-web-access[ 800, {data-kickstart-wiad--dynamic-web-access} ]

callout::1["Web Browser"]
callout::2["Web Server"]
callout::3["Rendering Engine (e.g. PHP-based)"]
callout::4["Database (e.g. MySQL, Postgres)"]
callout::5["Static content (Images, Videos, JS- and CSS files) and Caches", ml-2 mb-3]

== Is a CMS needed?

For many websites, dynamic page generation is entirely unnecessary and
adds unwanted risks in terms of complexity, performance losses, and security
issues. After all, the content of most websites changes, when the content
authors make changes. Why the hell should a web page always assemble on
demand if there are no changes?

NOTE: To be fair, most CMS are providing caching systems for web pages to
prevent unnecessary creation processes. It is not easy to implement such
a caching strategy, and in the very end, it adds the next level of
complexity.

A Static Site Generator takes a different approach and generates all the pages
of the website *upfront*. That does not necessarily mean that a static website
is always built from scratch. Modern generators support a so-called
incremental build, as does. When there are changes detected to the
content, only selected pages will rebuild.

.Accessing scheme for a static web
lightbox::kickstart-wiad--static-web-access[ 800, {data-kickstart-wiad--static-web-access} ]

callout::1["Web Browser"]
callout::2["Web Server"]
callout::3["Server-side rendered (prepared) static content", ml-2 mb-3]

== Statically build web pages

Overall, statically build web pages having no moving parts in the deployed
website. This results in browser-side caching only, the performance
goes up, and static sites are far more secure because they *build already*.
To find out what OpenSource Static Site Generators are available today and
their ranking in terms of popularity, go for Jamstack. You'll find a
comprehensive list of static site generators used today.

Check popular static site generators at {url-jamstack--generators}[Jamstack, {browser-window--new}]!

.Top Ratings at Jamstack of October 2022
[role="mb-4"]
image::/assets/images/posts/featured/jamstack-generators.jpg["jamstack-generators"]