Expert Guide

The Best Static Site Generators in 2026

Eight open-source generators compared on release freshness, GitHub stars and what the free tiers of Cloudflare Pages, Netlify and GitHub Pages let you ship.

Louis CorneloupFounder, Dupple · 930,000+ readers · Updated Oct 2026

Product links may be affiliate links. How we rate 8 tools compared

TL;DR

Astro is the best static site generator for most content sites in 2026, and Hugo is the pick when build time is the constraint. All eight tools here are free and open source, so the bill is hosting: Cloudflare Pages and GitHub Pages have free tiers, and Netlify is free with 300 credits a month, then $9 on Personal.

Choose Docusaurus or VitePress for documentation, Eleventy for minimal JavaScript, and Next.js only if your team already ships React.

Key facts8 tools compared: Astro, Hugo, Eleventy (Build Awesome), Next.js (static export), Docusaurus…

Updated: October 8, 2026
Top pick: Astro (best for: Blogs, marketing sites and content sites that want almost no JavaScript)
Top pick price as of October 8, 2026: Astro: Free and open source; 63,114 GitHub stars; astro 7.3.7 (October 7, 2026).

8 tools compared: Astro, Hugo, Eleventy (Build Awesome), Next.js (static export), Docusaurus, VitePress, Zola, Jekyll
Hugo (best for: Large sites with thousands of pages where build time is the bottleneck): Free and open source (Apache-2.0); 90,057 GitHub stars; v0.167.0 (September 28, 2026).
Eleventy (Build Awesome) (best for: Developers who want plain HTML output and a choice of template languages): Free and open source (MIT); 19,954 GitHub stars; v3.1.6 stable (June 2, 2026).
Next.js (static export) (best for: React teams that want a marketing site in the same codebase as their app): Free and open source (MIT); 143,251 GitHub stars; v16.4.0 (October 7, 2026).

Nothing about choosing a generator costs money, which makes the choice easy to get wrong. The cost shows up later, as a build cap you hit, a framework migration, or a docs site that outgrows its host.

Two shifts matter this year.

Astro shipped version 7.0 on June 22, 2026, with Vite 8 and a new Rust compiler aimed at faster builds. Its own blog says Evil Martians moved a site off Gatsby to Astro in nine days without rewriting React components. Gatsby's latest release on GitHub is [email protected] from February 10, 2026, and it is not in the ranking.

Eleventy has been renamed Build Awesome, and its repository now lives at 11ty/buildawesome.

Devshot data: Toolradar's static site generator ranking evaluated 26 tools as of October 8, 2026, and 25 of them have a free plan.

We took eight of those 26 and read their GitHub repositories the same day: together they hold 470,394 stars, and five of the eight published a release since September 1, 2026 (Astro, Hugo, Next.js, Zola and VitePress).

If you are weighing where the site will live, pair this with our serverless platforms guide and the Netlify review.

Top Picks

Based on features, real-world fit, and value for money.

Best Static Site Generators in 2026: 8 tools compared, updated Oct 2026
Tool	Pricing	Best for
Astro	Free and open source; 63,114 GitHub stars; astro 7.3.7 (October 7, 2026).	Blogs, marketing sites and content sites that want almost no JavaScript
Hugo	Free and open source (Apache-2.0); 90,057 GitHub stars; v0.167.0 (September 28, 2026).	Large sites with thousands of pages where build time is the bottleneck
Eleventy (Build Awesome)	Free and open source (MIT); 19,954 GitHub stars; v3.1.6 stable (June 2, 2026).	Developers who want plain HTML output and a choice of template languages
Next.js (static export)	Free and open source (MIT); 143,251 GitHub stars; v16.4.0 (October 7, 2026).	React teams that want a marketing site in the same codebase as their app
Docusaurus	Free and open source (MIT); 66,430 GitHub stars; v3.10.2 (July 10, 2026).	Product documentation that needs versions, translations and search
VitePress	Free and open source (MIT); 18,385 GitHub stars; 2.0.0-alpha.20 (September 4, 2026).	Vue and Vite developers writing documentation
Zola	Free and open source (EUPL-1.2); 17,498 GitHub stars; v0.23.6 (September 12, 2026).	Personal sites and small docs where a Rust binary beats a Node toolchain
Jekyll	Free and open source (MIT); 51,705 GitHub stars; v4.4.1 (January 29, 2025).	GitHub Pages sites where you want zero build configuration

Pricing read from each vendor's own published pricing page, checked Oct 2026. Every vendor here publishes a price.

Astro

Top Pick

Best for: Blogs, marketing sites and content sites that want almost no JavaScript

PricingFree and open source; 63,114 GitHub stars; astro 7.3.7 (October 7, 2026).

+Docs describe islands, so pages ship little client JavaScript by default

+Supports React, Preact, Svelte, Vue, Solid and web components in one project

+Astro 7.2 added experimental incremental static builds for large sites

−Fast release cadence: 7.0 landed June 22, 2026 and 7.3.7 followed by October 7, so pin versions

−The repository license shows as unrecognized on GitHub, so read the LICENSE file before adopting

Visit Astro →

Hugo

Best for: Large sites with thousands of pages where build time is the bottleneck

PricingFree and open source (Apache-2.0); 90,057 GitHub stars; v0.167.0 (September 28, 2026).

+Project states sites build in seconds, often less, the strongest speed claim in this list

+Apache-2.0 license

+No Node.js toolchain: it is written in Go

−Version numbers are still 0.x, so minor releases can change behavior

−Its pitch is speed and flexibility, not a component model like Astro's UI framework support

Visit Hugo →

Eleventy (Build Awesome)

Best for: Developers who want plain HTML output and a choice of template languages

PricingFree and open source (MIT); 19,954 GitHub stars; v3.1.6 stable (June 2, 2026).

+Supports HTML, Markdown, JavaScript, WebC, Nunjucks, Liquid, Handlebars, Mustache, EJS, HAML, Pug and Sass templates

+Both npm package names work, @awesome.me/buildawesome and the legacy @11ty/eleventy

+No client-side framework forced on you

−The newest stable build is from June, while 4.0 alphas ran through July 1, so the next major is not final

−The rename splits search results and tutorials between two names

Visit Eleventy (Build Awesome) →

Next.js (static export)

Best for: React teams that want a marketing site in the same codebase as their app

PricingFree and open source (MIT); 143,251 GitHub stars; v16.4.0 (October 7, 2026).

+Set output to export and next build writes plain files to an out folder

+Server Components run at build time during a static export

+Deploys to any host that serves HTML, CSS and JavaScript, including Nginx

−Static export drops Incremental Static Regeneration, Server Actions, rewrites, redirects and headers

−The default image loader does not work in static export, so you bring Cloudinary or another loader

Visit Next.js (static export) →

Docusaurus

Best for: Product documentation that needs versions, translations and search

PricingFree and open source (MIT); 66,430 GitHub stars; v3.10.2 (July 10, 2026).

+Document versioning keeps docs in sync with project releases

+MDX lets you embed interactive React components inside Markdown

+Translations and site search are built in rather than plugins you wire up

−Built on React, so even a simple docs page ships a client-side app

−Last release was July 10, so it moves slower than Astro or Next.js

Visit Docusaurus →

VitePress

Best for: Vue and Vite developers writing documentation

PricingFree and open source (MIT); 18,385 GitHub stars; 2.0.0-alpha.20 (September 4, 2026).

+Powers the docs of Vite, Rollup, Pinia, VueUse, Vitest and Vue itself

+Vite dev server gives instant starts and edits under 100 ms by the project's own claim

+Static HTML first, then single-page navigation that the docs say feels instant

−The latest GitHub release is an alpha, so pin the version and read changelogs before upgrading

−Vue-centric: React teams get no benefit from its component model

Visit VitePress →

Zola

Best for: Personal sites and small docs where a Rust binary beats a Node toolchain

PricingFree and open source (EUPL-1.2); 17,498 GitHub stars; v0.23.6 (September 12, 2026).

+Built-in Sass, syntax highlighting, search index and image processing

+Tera templates feel familiar if you know Jinja2, Django or Liquid

+Active project: v0.23.6 shipped September 12, 2026

−Smallest star count in this list at 17,498, so fewer themes and answers online

−Still 0.x, and the EUPL-1.2 license is less common than MIT, which some legal teams review

Visit Zola →

Jekyll

Best for: GitHub Pages sites where you want zero build configuration

PricingFree and open source (MIT); 51,705 GitHub stars; v4.4.1 (January 29, 2025).

+GitHub says Pages is powered by Jekyll, so a push builds your site for free

+Files without front matter are treated as static assets, so plain HTML works

+51,705 stars and years of themes and tutorials

−Latest stable release is January 29, 2025, the oldest of the eight

−It needs a Ruby toolchain, which is a cost if your team writes JavaScript

Visit Jekyll →

What it is

A static site generator is a build tool that turns templates and content, usually Markdown, into plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript files that any web server or CDN can host.

There is no application server to patch, so the attack surface is small and the hosting bill is close to nothing.

The trade-off is that anything personalized or real time has to come from client-side code or an external API.

That is why two of the eight below, Next.js and Astro, are really frameworks that can also emit static files, and why Next.js loses features such as Incremental Static Regeneration and Server Actions in static export mode.

Why it matters

Three costs decide this choice, and none is the license. The first is builds: Cloudflare Pages allows 500 a month on its free plan, about 16 a day, and a monorepo that rebuilds on every push can burn through that. The second is the file cap.

A Pages site holds up to 20,000 files on the free plan, so a docs site with many locales and versions can reach it.

The third is bandwidth priced in credits. Netlify charges 15 credits per production deploy and 20 per GB of bandwidth, against 300 free credits a month.

Our arithmetic: a site that publishes 10 times a month spends 150 credits on deploys and has 150 left, which covers 7.5 GB of traffic before the free credits run out and the Personal plan becomes the next step.

Methodology. We read each project's repository through the GitHub API on October 8, 2026 for stars, license and latest release, and each project's own documentation for what it claims.

Hosting limits were read on Cloudflare's, Netlify's and GitHub's own pages the same day. We ran no build benchmarks, so speed is quoted only where a project publishes its own claim. We re-check this page when a major version or a hosting price changes.

Key features to look for

Content modelEssential

Markdown files, MDX components or a CMS API. This decides how much your writers can ship without a developer.

JavaScript shipped to readersEssential

Astro and Eleventy send plain HTML by default. VitePress and Docusaurus hydrate a single-page app on top, which feels instant to navigate but adds weight.

Release freshness

Check the date of the last stable release. Jekyll's is January 29, 2025, while Astro shipped 7.3.7 on October 7, 2026.

Docs features

Versioning, search and translations. Docusaurus lists all three as built in, which saves a week of wiring on a docs site.

Host limits

Build counts, file caps and credit-based bandwidth on the free tier of the host you pick, not the generator.

Pricing

Every generator here is free. What you pay for is where the files live, and prices below were read on the host's own pricing and limits pages on October 8, 2026. GitHub Pages documents a 1 GB published site size, a soft 100 GB monthly bandwidth limit and a soft limit of 10 builds an hour, and its limits page lists no price.

Cloudflare's Pages limits page lists 500 builds a month, 20,000 files per site and a 25 MiB cap on any single file on the free plan.

Netlify is the only one of the three with a published paid ladder: Free, Personal at $9 a month with 1,000 credits, and Pro at $20 a month with 3,000.

The cheapest way to stay free is Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages for a plain static site, and Netlify when you want deploy previews on every branch.

Sources: Cloudflare Pages limits, Netlify pricing and GitHub Pages limits.

Plan	Price	Best for
All eight generators	Free	Open source projects, no per-seat or per-site fee for the software
Cloudflare Pages Free	Free	500 builds a month, 20,000 files per site, 25 MiB per file
Cloudflare Pages Pro	Paid plan	5,000 builds a month and up to 100,000 files per site
Netlify Free	Free	300 credits a month; production deploys cost 15 credits, bandwidth 20 credits per GB
Netlify Personal	$9/month	1,000 credits a month, secret detection and priority email support
Netlify Pro	From $20/month	3,000 credits a month, unlimited members, private organization repos
GitHub Pages	Free	1 GB site, soft 100 GB monthly bandwidth, soft 10 builds an hour

Mistakes to avoid

×Picking by stars alone. Next.js has 143,251 stars, but a static export gives up Incremental Static Regeneration, Server Actions and redirects, which a pure generator never promised.

×Choosing Docusaurus or VitePress for a marketing site. They are built for documentation, so you will fight the sidebar layout and ship a single-page app for a landing page.

×Ignoring the host's build cap. A site that rebuilds on every commit can exceed Cloudflare's 500 free builds a month during a busy week.

Expert tips

→Run your real content through the generator before you commit, because build time depends on page count and images, not on a benchmark chart.

→Pin the generator version in your lockfile. Astro ships patch releases most weeks, and VitePress's latest release is still an alpha.

→Check the date of the latest stable release in each repository. A project with no stable release for 20 months, like Jekyll, can still be a fine choice, but you should choose it knowingly.

The bottom line

Pick Astro for a blog or marketing site, Hugo when thousands of pages make build time the problem, and Docusaurus or VitePress when the site is documentation.

Use Eleventy if you want the least JavaScript and the most template choice, Zola if you prefer a Rust binary, and Jekyll only for GitHub Pages sites you already run.

Choose Next.js static export when the team already ships React.

Start on a free tier: Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages or Netlify Free cost nothing, and moving later is a config change rather than a rewrite.

Cite this: Devshot, "Best Static Site Generators in 2026", October 2026.

Tool pages: Astro, Hugo, Eleventy, Next.js, Docusaurus, Jekyll, Zola, VitePress.

Stars and releases from GitHub: withastro/astro, gohugoio/hugo, 11ty/buildawesome, vercel/next.js, facebook/docusaurus, vuejs/vitepress, getzola/zola, jekyll/jekyll.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best static site generator in 2026?

Astro is the best pick for most content sites in 2026: it ships HTML first, supports React, Vue, Svelte and other UI frameworks, and released version 7.3.7 on October 7, 2026. Choose Hugo for very large sites, or Docusaurus and VitePress for documentation.

How much does it cost to host a static site?

Hosting can be free. Cloudflare Pages allows 500 builds a month and 20,000 files on its free plan, GitHub Pages allows a 1 GB site, and Netlify Free gives 300 credits a month. Netlify Personal is $9 a month and Pro is from $20 a month, all read on October 8, 2026.

Are static site generators free?

Yes. Astro, Hugo, Eleventy, Next.js, Docusaurus, VitePress, Zola and Jekyll are open source projects with no license fee, and 25 of the 26 static site generators Toolradar evaluated have a free plan. The costs are hosting, a CMS if you want one, and developer time.

Is Eleventy the same as Build Awesome?

Yes. The Eleventy repository is now 11ty/buildawesome and its documentation says Build Awesome, but you can install either @awesome.me/buildawesome or the legacy @11ty/eleventy package. The latest stable release is v3.1.6 from June 2, 2026.

Can Next.js be a static site generator?

Yes, with output set to export in next.config.js, which writes HTML, CSS and JavaScript to an out folder. Incremental Static Regeneration, Server Actions, rewrites, redirects and the default image loader do not work in that mode.

Is Jekyll still worth using in 2026?

For GitHub Pages sites, yes, because GitHub builds Jekyll for you. Its latest stable release, v4.4.1, is from January 29, 2025, so for a new project with a JavaScript team, Astro or Eleventy fit better.

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