# Alternatives to Zola Single-binary Rust SSG. Zola ranks #6 of 8 in Static site generators, with an Alt Score of 68. It is licensed under EUPL-1.2, 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/zola/ Category: Static site generators ## Overview - **Who it's for**: Developers and technical writers who want to build a blog, docs site, or landing page from Markdown without wiring together a JS toolchain or managing dependencies. - **What you get**: A single Rust binary with everything built in: Tera templating, Sass compilation, syntax highlighting, image processing, search index generation, and multilingual/taxonomy support with no plugins to install. Builds are near-instant even for large sites, and output is plain static files you can host anywhere. - **How it works**: Run `zola init` to scaffold a site, write pages/posts as Markdown with TOML/YAML front matter, and use `zola serve` for a live-reloading local preview or `zola build` to produce the static output directory for deployment. ## Profile - **License**: EUPL-1.2 (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 | [Hugo](https://altcatalog.com/alternatives/hugo.md) | 64 | Apache-2.0 | 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 | Zola | Eleventy | Gatsby | Astro | Jekyll | Publii | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Pricing model | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | | Starts at | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | Free | | License | EUPL-1.2 | 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 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Markdown / MDX | Partial | Partial | Yes | Yes | Partial | Partial | | Partial hydration / islands | ? | Partial | Partial | Yes | No | ? | | CMS integrations | ? | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial | | Learning curve | Yes | Yes | Partial | ? | Partial | Yes | ## Sources Sources for Zola. Each alternative is sourced on its own page. - **Starts at**: Free — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software” - **License**: EUPL-1.2 — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: Post-v0.22 EUPL-1.2; legacy code MIT. GitHub API spdx_id = EUPL-1.2. - Quote: “Code introduced after version 0.22 is licensed under the EUPL-1.2. Code that existed prior to commit 3c9131db0d203640b6d5619ca1f75ce1e0d49d8f remains licensed under the MIT License, including in later” - **Pricing model**: Free — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software” - **Platforms**: Windows, macOS, Linux — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Zola provides pre-built binaries for MacOS, Linux and Windows on the GitHub release page” - **Status**: active — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: pushed_at": "2026-07-10T16:40:43Z", ... "archived": false" - **Build speed**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “A fast static site generator in a single binary with everything built-in.” - **Templating language**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Zola uses the Tera template engine, which is very similar to Jinja2, Liquid and Twig.” - **Content collections**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Each child directory in the `content` directory represents a section that contains pages (your `.md` files).” - **Image optimization**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Quote: “Zola provides support for automatic image resizing through the built-in function `resize_image`” - **i18n support**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: README: 'Multilingual site support (Basic currently)'. - Quote: “Zola supports having a site in multiple languages.” - **Plugin ecosystem**: No — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: all you need in a single binary", it's pretty unlikely to happen" — Maintainer: no plugin system by design. - Quote: “In practice since the tagline is ” - **Markdown / MDX**: Partial — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: CommonMark; no MDX. - Quote: “Content is written in CommonMark, a strongly defined, highly compatible specification of Markdown” - **Learning curve**: Yes — (verified 2026-07-10) - Note: Minimal CLI; single binary. - Quote: “Zola only has 4 commands: `init`, `build`, `serve` and `check`.” --- Ranked by verified data, never by who paid. https://altcatalog.com/trust/