Originally published at: http://www.sitepoint.com/6-nodejs-static-site-generators/
As Node.js continues to grow in terms of popularity and as a viable solution for small and big web applications, many talented developers are creating Node-based systems to replace some of the old guard software many of us know and love.
In the context of content management systems (CMSs), without any doubt the most popular is WordPress. It’s a reliable and solid system with a very active community. It allows people with little to no technical skills to create any kind of website including, but not limited to, blogs. Among static site generators, Jekyll and Jekyll-based systems have been favored by developers looking for a light-weight solution for creating blogs or informational websites. In this article, I’ll give you an overview of 6 Node.js static site generators for all the JavaScript lovers out there.
Wintersmith
Wintersmith claims to be a flexible, minimalistic, multi-platform static site generator built on top of Node.js. Certainly, minimalistic is the key word! Wintersmith isn’t suited for beginners, but it’s perfectly fine for intermediate or advanced developers looking to get up and running with little fuss. Wintersmith’s approach isn’t the only thing that’s minimal. It was coded in CoffeeScript and ships with Jade and Markdown ready to go.
This static site generator hosts its API docs on the website, but uses GitHub for hosting the wiki. The information is straightforward but sparse. However, a decently active StackOverflow tag and IRC channel (#wintersmith) means help isn’t too far away.
Assemble
Assemble is a powerful tool that integrates Grunt and Yeoman into its workflow. Like Punch and DocPad discussed later in this article, Assemble tries to get designers and developers on the same page. For example, Assemble comes pre-packaged with Handlebars, one of the most widely used and beginner-friendly templating systems available.
While Assemble does come with a plugin system, it’s primarily for extend[ing] the core functionality of Assemble, and not necessarily for adding front-end frameworks, jQuery plugins, or other JavaScript libraries you might want to use.
Continue reading this article on SitePoint