https://janikvonrotz.ch/tags/zensical/ Recent content in Zensical on Janik von Rotz Hugo en Tue, 27 Oct 2026 22:20:11 +0100 https://janikvonrotz.ch/2026/10/27/the-static-site-generator-to-rule-them-all/ Tue, 27 Oct 2026 22:20:11 +0100 https://janikvonrotz.ch/2026/10/27/the-static-site-generator-to-rule-them-all/ <p>TL;DR: Use <a href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo.io</a> for websites and <a href="https://zensical.org/">Zensical</a> for docs.</p> <p>Since <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PHP2Shell">PHP2Shell</a> we know that we should use static sites whenever possible. As the name implies Static Site Generators (SSG) do exactly that. They take templates, markup (data) and smash it together. The output is a beautiful website (HTML + CSS + JS). The big advantage of this, the system that building the website (artifact) is not the same serving it. The separation also makes it easy to keep sensitive data out of reach. Only what is supposed to be public goes public.</p> <p>The SSG-approach has entered the mainstream a long time ago. Every major website is most likely a static site. The list of Static Site Generators (SSG) has become endless: <a href="https://jamstack.org/generators/">https://jamstack.org/generators/</a></p> <p>Some SSGs ask you to create templates (for websites) and some provide a highly opinionated template that can be customized (especially for docs). The SSGs I know fall into these categories:</p> <ul> <li>Takes markdown as input and outputs a website: 11ty, Jekyll, Hugo &hellip;</li> <li>Takes markdown and outputs a documentation: Quarto, Quartz, Vuepress, Vitepress, Zensical &hellip;</li> </ul> <p>From the very few I tested and without going into details, I recommend Hugo for websites and Zensical for documentations.</p>