Static Site Generator (SSG)
A tool that compiles plain-text source files (Markdown, templates, data) into
pre-rendered HTML at build time, producing a static _site that any web server or
CDN can serve — no per-request application server or database. The central concept of
this wiki and the build-time half of the jamstack architecture.
Defining traits
- Build-time rendering (vs. a CMS like wordpress rendering per request).
- Output is static files → fast, cheap to host, secure (no live DB/PHP to exploit), trivially CDN-cacheable.
- Content authored in portable formats (often Markdown) → low lock-in.
The landscape (from our sources)
Hundreds of tools exist, organized by use case in awesome-static-generators and ranked by popularity in jamstack-generators-list. Recurring names:
| Generator | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Next.js | JS/React | #1 by stars; really a meta-framework (SSG + SSR) |
| hugo | Go | speed-focused; very popular |
| docusaurus | JS/React | documentation sites |
| Gatsby | JS/React | early React SSG |
| astro | JS | content-first, islands-architecture, zero-JS default |
| eleventy | JS (Node) | minimal, zero-config, 13+ template languages |
| jekyll | Ruby | the early standard-bearer |
Two axes of “fast”
The sources measure speed differently — keep them distinct:
- Build speed: eleventy (~4k files in 1.93s, ~12× faster than astro).
- Runtime speed: astro (66% of sites pass core-web-vitals).
Boundary blur
The most popular “SSGs” (jamstack-generators-list‘s top entries: Next.js, Gatsby, docusaurus) are React meta-frameworks that also do server rendering — the SSG category is merging into general web frameworks. See synthesis.
Related
jamstack · islands-architecture · static-site-publishing · astro · eleventy · hugo · core-web-vitals · awesome-static-generators · jamstack-generators-list · synthesis