Jekyll vs Ghost

Okay, so I’m trying to determine if I want to move to a different blogging platform and one thing that is constantly of interest to me are the static generators.

I’ve got a good handle on Jekyll and love the fact that I can simply deploy the generated content on any host that can serve up html file (no additional software required).

I’m struggling with Ghost and figuring out if it behaves the same way as Jekyll or if Node.js is still required to serve up the static pages (and if it is, doesn’t that sort of defeat the idea of static pages?).

Does anyone have any experience with either (or an alternative static page generator)? Any concerns with using one?

Ghost it’s definitely more versatile

Because…???

Do you happen to know if it still requires Node.js on the server you want your pages to exist? Or is it a “true” static page generator?

has more options in the configuration and seo is better, just a matter of taste and handling.

In my opinion, Ghost is going to go downhill unless they do something about Node.js being “rough around the edges” which they unabashedly celebrate.

It is irritating when you make small changes on your server and you have to restart node.js for changes to take place. (And it takes a good 15 minutes for that!).

Apart from this, Ghost is quite cool and powerful. And the fact that it’s growing at an alarming rate.

You can know that it’s growing from the simple fact the themeforest.net has opened up a category exclusively for ‘Ghost’ themes. :wink:

(Ah, ugly emoticons Discourse! I’d rather stop using them :rage4:)

Ghost is quite unlike Jekyll, in that it requires a server that supports Node.js, while Jekyll doesn’t need anything fancy on the server (just a local install of Ruby for processing).

I was interested in the options for a while, and what really took my fancy was flat file CMSes like Statamic (which runs on PHP).

EDIT: oops, didn’t realise this was an old thread.

Hehe, I don’t mind. I’m still looking/evaluating, as I really want to get off wordpress. It is just too “clunky” for me anymore.

Oh man. Stay away from anything Java or C# related then. Not only do you have to restart, you have to recompile your entire app. But, most people run things or IDEs that do this automatically for development.

It looks like there a Node.js plugin called supervisor that does something similar.

:laughing: Obviously you’ve never had the pleasure of running one of my apps :wink: I force an Operating System re-install too!

In all seriousness, I’ve yet to have a program in C# that I’ve written, need to be babied, and I’ve written some very CPU/Memory/Network intensive pieces – yes, they were designed that way, as its goal was to push out data as fast as it can.

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The changes after restarting have always been instantaneous in my experience. I think sitemaps and more SEO features are upcoming.

I might be wrong, but I haven’t come across anything Java or C# related that claims “simple, powerful publishing platform”. When you’re creating a super simple UX for the end user (the non-technical laymen), you can’t take pride in the ‘geekiness’ of stuff.

I might be wrong, but I haven’t come across anything Java or C# related that claims “simple, powerful publishing platform”. When you’re creating a super simple UX for the end user (the non-technical laymen), you can’t take pride in the ‘geekiness’ of stuff.

Well, to be fair changing the design of the site isn’t what they meant by “publishing”. lol

From the little I’ve played around with Ghost, it’s probably the most simple blog publishing platform I’ve ever used.

Okay, I think I’ve officially decided on Pelican. The documentation is great, it generates the static HTML so I can push it to my server and not need any additional requirements. It is very light weight, and it has the ability to import my existing Wordpress content!

So far, apart from the default theme, I’m loving it.