Static Site Generators in Production

Guides by tool

Topics answer what a guide is about; tools answer what it is about in your stack. If your site is built with Hugo, deployed from GitHub Actions and served by Cloudflare, those three pages collect every guide that works with them in depth, across all three sections of the site — build times and image caches, CI workflows, edge caching and redirects.

A guide is filed under a tool when the tool is its subject or is used throughout it, not when it is mentioned in passing, and a tool gets its own page once at least five guides cover it. Tools with fewer guides are still searchable and appear in the list below with a link to a filtered search instead of a thin page.

Layers of a static site stack and the tools covered at each Four layers. Generators and docs frameworks such as Astro, Eleventy, Hugo, Jekyll, Next.js, Starlight and Docusaurus. CI such as GitHub Actions. Hosting and edge such as Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel and AWS. Measurement and search such as Lighthouse and Pagefind. Where each tool sits in a static site Generator and docs framework Astro, Eleventy, Hugo, Jekyll, Next.js, Starlight build the HTML CI GitHub Actions build, test, deploy Hosting and edge Cloudflare, Netlify, Vercel, AWS serve and cache Measurement and search Lighthouse, Pagefind check and find
Most sites use one tool from each layer, which is why reading across two or three tool pages covers most of a stack.

Generators

  • Astro63 guidesIslands, content collections, astro:assets and deployment.
  • Eleventy39 guidesIncremental builds, image pipelines and the data cascade.
  • Hugo37 guidesBuild time at scale, image caches, modules and multilingual sites.
  • Jekyll14 guidesPlugins, reproducible builds, upgrades and migration away.
  • Next.js13 guidesStatic export for content sites, its limits and alternatives.
  • Gatsby5 guidesMaintaining and migrating existing Gatsby sites.
Number of guides that cover each tool in depth Horizontal bars, largest first: Astro 63, Eleventy 39, Hugo 37, Cloudflare 27, GitHub Actions 19, Netlify 17, AWS (S3 and CloudFront) 15, Lighthouse 15, Jekyll 14, Next.js 13, Vercel 12, Starlight 10, Pagefind 10, Docusaurus 7, VitePress 7, nginx 7, Playwright 7, GitHub Pages 6, Gatsby 5 and Caddy 5. Guides per tool Astro 63 Eleventy 39 Hugo 37 Cloudflare 27 GitHub Actions 19 Netlify 17 AWS (S3 and CloudFront) 15 Lighthouse 15 Jekyll 14 Next.js 13 Vercel 12 Starlight 10 Pagefind 10 Docusaurus 7 VitePress 7 nginx 7 Playwright 7 GitHub Pages 6 Gatsby 5 Caddy 5
Tools with at least 5 guides; a guide can cover more than one tool.

Documentation frameworks

  • Starlight10 guidesAstro-based docs: overrides, translation and migration in.
  • Docusaurus7 guidesVersioned docs, faster builds and migration out.
  • VitePress7 guidesVue-based docs, compared on build time and page weight.
Number of guides that cover at least one tool in each layer Vertical bars: Generators 114, Documentation frameworks 18, Build and deploy pipelines 19, Hosting and edge 70 and Measurement, testing and search 35. A further 125 guides are tool-agnostic and appear under topics only. Guides by layer of the stack 114 Generators 18 Docs frameworks 19 Pipelines 70 Hosting and edge 35 Measure and search
125 of 347 guides are about a technique rather than a product and are filed under topics only.

Build and deploy pipelines

  • GitHub Actions19 guidesCaching, matrix builds, reusable workflows and pinning.

Hosting and edge

  • Cloudflare27 guidesPages and Workers hosting, cache rules and edge functions.
  • Netlify17 guidesHeaders, redirects, deploy previews and build caching.
  • Vercel12 guidesNon-Next.js generators, the Build Output API and caching.
  • AWS (S3 and CloudFront)15 guidesS3 and CloudFront: clean URLs, cache policies and deploys.
  • GitHub Pages6 guidesPublishing from Actions and custom domains.
  • nginx7 guidesSelf-hosted serving, compression and cache headers.
  • Caddy5 guidesSelf-hosted serving with automatic HTTPS.

Measurement, testing and search

  • Lighthouse15 guidesBudgets, Lighthouse CI and lab against field data.
  • Playwright7 guidesEnd-to-end and visual regression tests on built output.
  • Pagefind10 guidesStatic search indexes, multilingual search and budgets.
  • Tailwind CSS4 guidesKeeping generated CSS small on static sites.