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Can anyone recommend a decent static site generator?

I used to use Jekyll, but maintaining a working Ruby installation is nigromancy I never mastered.

@phill I dived into Next.js with React and Tailwind when I moved away from Jekyll, and after a bit of config and setup I find it's fantastic! All on Netlify/Vercel, automated builds etc and pretty much set and forget

radiant.social is this set up for an example 😊

@jknlsn ahh yes heard lots of great things about Next and Tailwind; I'll take a look. Cheers!

@phill I am using Zola getzola.org, I like their templating engine the best (think it is the same as Jekyll?)

@phill It is just one binary, so no dev environment hell, and it is supported by Netlify directly

@florianbuerger @phill Plus one for Zola! Very nice working with it, without any dev environment hell.

@florianbuerger @phill I switched from Pelican to Zola a few years back and haven't looked back. I'm sure it's missing things, but it works without worrying about the Python environment and the speed difference is huge even with a small number of articles.

@denis ahh yes I came across Hugo, looks cool! Thanks for the suggestion

@phill I've used a bunch and I'm sticking with 11ty as it's really simple and easy to maintain.

IMHO (opinions vary here) the developer experience for _more complex_ stuff (e.g. if you're building a component - heavy project) could be better.

I personally like that because I have fewer excuses to yak shave instead of writing.

Sveltekit and Next.js are nice too. IMHO Sveltekit feels closer to working with regular HTML. I use both for other projects.

All work with vercel/netlify OOTB.

@phill My suggestion would be to start with 11ty (11ty.dev) with a simple tutorial (Quickstart in 2 steps or their "6-minute blog").

If you don't like it, try svelte kit or next.

I'd say that the 11ty and svelte kit communities are a bit more responsive[*], but ofc nextjs will have a tonne of online resources.

[*] people actually responding to help me solve fairly niche problems

@raf this looks really cool and well supported -- thanks for the suggestions!

@phill I’m curious what you settle on!

But also, if you need any help sorting out a Ruby install in the meantime, I’d be happy to try. Do you use something like rbenv?

@mattiem I'll keep you posted!

And yeh I've used rbenv before, but every time I start a new project I'm on a new machine and *something* throws an error *somewhere* and my setup isn't *quite right*

Translation: If I had any patience it would probably work 😛

@phill nah Ruby can be a big pain. Without rbenv it’s basically impossible, but it definitely isn’t magic.

@phill That's the thread I needed. Have to build a new website in the near future. Thanks all for the great suggestions 🥳

@phill I was in the same boat a while ago, and decided to go with @astro. It's been great ever since! shortway.io/migrate-jekyll-to-

@jayshortway @astro wow great post, thanks for sharing!

"it will initialize your project directory with the theme files"

Sometimes it's the little things 🥹

@phill Indeed! If the little things align perfectly with your workflow it's magical. Thanks for reading :)

@phill Hugo hands down. If you're coming from Jekyll, it'll be easy to pick up.

@phill I'd say Astro os the right tool for the job in 2023, no contest. 🤷‍♂️

@phill it even let's you piecemeal scale beyond static if you ever need it. 🤟

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