Introduction
Jekyll is a popular website generator based on Ruby, which is designed to build static websites. Jekyll is developed by Tom Preston-Werner and was first introduced in Blogging Like a Hacker. Jekyll is fully integrated with Github and can be hosted for free on Github Pages.
Jekyll takes a template directory and runs it through two converters, Textile and Liquid. The result is a purely static website, a bunch of HTML and CSS files, ready to be served.
Dynamic vs Static
Website generators are divided into two categories: Dynamic and Static. Static pages are pre-rendered, cached, and delivered to the user via a content delivery network (CDN). On the other hand, Dynamic pages are generated in real-time when the user sends the request. Content Management Systems (CMS) are designed to retrieve data from databases and build the website on the server-side. Static websites are easier for the web browser to load and are great choices for personal blogs, academic websites, or simple business websites. They eliminate the complexity of creating and working with databases and do not have any unnecessary overhead.
To use static website generators, you are generally expected to use code editors to build your website. Also, knowing a bit of CSS and HTML can help you to customize a theme for your website. Since the base themes for Jekyll is often uncomplicated, you can save a lot of time. Static websites do not dynamically recover data so you cannot add authentication to your website or build a marketplace. However, maintaining static websites is much easier, they are more secure and often the better choice for smaller personal projects.
Read SSG Part 1 on Gitlab to learn more about static and dynamic website generators and the process of serving a website on the internet.
Popular dynamic site generators include:
Popular static site generators are: