# Alternatives to Hugo

The fastest builds in the business.

Hugo ranks #7 of 8 in Static site generators, with an Alt Score of 64. It is licensed under Apache-2.0, free from Free and available on Windows, macOS and Linux. 8 of 10 checklist rows are verified against a public source.

Source: https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/hugo/
Category: Static site generators

## Overview

- **Who it's for**: Developers, technical writers, and teams building documentation sites, blogs, or marketing/landing pages who want a fast, dependency-free static site with full control over templates and markup.
- **What you get**: A single Go binary that builds sites from Markdown content and Go html/template-based themes/layouts, with no runtime dependencies (no database, no server-side code). It includes a built-in dev server with live reload, an asset pipeline (image processing, Sass/SCSS, JS bundling), multilingual/i18n support, and taxonomies for organizing content. Hugo is known for very fast build times, even on sites with thousands of pages.
- **How it works**: You write content as Markdown files with front matter, organize them in a content directory, and define how they're rendered using Hugo's template language and a theme/layout structure; running `hugo` compiles everything into a folder of static HTML/CSS/JS files you can host anywhere, or `hugo server` previews the site locally with live reload.

## Profile

- **License**: Apache-2.0 (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Pricing model**: Free (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Starts at**: Free (verified 2026-07-10)
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux
- **Status**: active (verified 2026-07-10)

## Ranked alternatives

| # | App | Alt Score | Licence | Platforms |
|---|-----|-----------|---------|-----------|
| 1 | [Eleventy](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/eleventy.md) | 91 | MIT | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 2 | [Gatsby](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/gatsby.md) | 86 | MIT | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 3 | [Astro](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/astro.md) | 82 | MIT | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 4 | [Jekyll](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/jekyll.md) | 68 | MIT | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 5 | [Publii](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/publii.md) | 68 | GPL-3.0 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 6 | [Zola](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/zola.md) | 68 | EUPL-1.2 | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 7 | [Pelican](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/pelican.md) | 64 | AGPL-3.0 | ? |

Alt Score = Verified coverage (90%) + Visibility (10%). See https://altcatalog.com/how-alt-score-works/

## Feature comparison

Legend: Yes / No / Partial / ? (not verified).

| Static site generators checklist | Hugo | Eleventy | Gatsby | Astro | Jekyll | Publii |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| Starts at | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT | MIT | MIT | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Build speed | Yes | Yes | Partial | ? | Partial | Yes |
| Templating language | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Content collections | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? |
| Image optimization | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Yes |
| i18n support | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Plugin ecosystem | Partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Markdown / MDX | Partial | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial |
| Partial hydration / islands | No | Partial | Partial | Yes | No | ? |
| CMS integrations | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial |
| Learning curve | ? | Yes | Partial | ? | Partial | Yes |

## Sources

Sources for Hugo. Each alternative is sourced on its own page.

- **License**: Apache-2.0 — <https://gohugo.io/about/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “License Hugo is released under the Apache 2.0 license.”
- **Pricing model**: Free — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gohugoio/hugo/master/LICENSE> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Free OSS; no paid tiers.
  - Quote: “Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004”
- **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux — <https://gohugo.io/documentation/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Install Hugo on macOS, Linux, Windows, BSD, and on any machine that can run the Go compiler tool chain.”
- **Starts at**: Free — <https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gohugoio/hugo/master/LICENSE> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Apache License Version 2.0, January 2004”
- **Status**: active — <https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/tag/v0.164.0> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: v0.164.0 published 06 Jul 2026; weekly release cadence.
  - Quote: “Latest”
- **Build speed**: Yes — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Hugo's rich and powerful feature set provides the framework and tools to create static sites that build in seconds, often less.”
- **Templating language**: Yes — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Go html/template.
  - Quote: “Create templates using variables, functions, and methods to transform your content, resources, and data into a published page.”
- **Content collections**: Yes — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Taxonomies Classify content to establish simple or complex logical relationships between pages.”
- **Image optimization**: Yes — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Convert, resize, crop, rotate, adjust colors, apply filters, overlay text and images, and extract metadata.”
- **i18n support**: Yes — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Quote: “Localize your project for each language and region, including translations, images, dates, currencies, numbers, percentages, and collation sequence. Hugo's multilingual framework supports single-host ”
- **Plugin ecosystem**: Partial — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: No plugin API; extensibility via Hugo Modules + Themes.
  - Quote: “Reduce development time and cost by creating or importing packaged combinations of archetypes, assets, content, data, templates, translation tables, static files, or configuration settings.”
- **Markdown / MDX**: Partial — <https://gohugo.io/about/features/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Markdown (Goldmark); no MDX.
  - Quote: “Create your content using Markdown, HTML, AsciiDoc, Emacs Org Mode, Pandoc, or reStructuredText. Markdown is the default content format, conforming to the CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown speci”
- **Partial hydration / islands**: No — <https://gohugo.io/about/> (verified 2026-07-10)
  - Note: Plain static HTML; no islands.
  - Quote: “Hugo is a static site generator written in Go, optimized for speed and designed for flexibility.”

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Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/