Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Jekyll VS GatsbyJS

Compare Jekyll VS GatsbyJS and see what are their differences

Jekyll logo Jekyll

Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator.

GatsbyJS logo GatsbyJS

Blazing-fast static site generator for React
  • Jekyll Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-17
  • GatsbyJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12

Jekyll features and specs

  • Speed and Performance
    Jekyll generates static websites, which means they load faster compared to dynamic websites. No database queries are required, reducing server overhead and improving performance.
  • Security
    Static sites have a smaller attack surface compared to dynamic sites because they don't rely on databases or server-side code. This means fewer vectors for potential compromises.
  • Simplicity
    Jekyll setups are relatively straightforward, especially if you are comfortable writing in Markdown and HTML. This can make it easier to manage and maintain your website.
  • Integration with GitHub Pages
    Jekyll is designed to work seamlessly with GitHub Pages, allowing you to host your website for free with automatic deployment directly from your GitHub repository.
  • Customizability
    Jekyll allows for extensive customization through its support for plugins, themes, and templates. This can be helpful to create a unique look and functionality for your website.

Possible disadvantages of Jekyll

  • Learning Curve
    While Jekyll is simpler than some other static site generators, it does require some familiarity with the command line, version control (Git), and YAML configuration.
  • Build Time
    For large websites, the build times can become lengthy, which can slow down the development process, especially if you are making frequent updates.
  • Lack of Real-time Content Updates
    Since Jekyll generates static sites, real-time content updates (e.g., comments, dynamic forms) aren't natively supported and require third-party services or additional tooling.
  • Dependence on Ruby
    Jekyll is built with Ruby, so you will need to have Ruby installed and occasionally deal with Ruby-specific issues. This might be a drawback for developers who are not familiar with the Ruby ecosystem.
  • Limited Built-in Functionality
    While Jekyll is very flexible, it doesn’t have built-in support for many features out of the box, which might require you to manually implement or rely on plugins.

GatsbyJS features and specs

  • Performance
    GatsbyJS pre-builds your site into static files for fast load times and instantaneous page loads thanks to features like code splitting, PRPL pattern, and Asset Optimization.
  • SEO-Friendly
    GatsbyJS generates static HTML, which helps search engines to index your site more effectively. Additionally, you have fine-grained control over metadata and other SEO optimizations.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    GatsbyJS boasts an extensive plugin ecosystem that covers a wide array of functionalities such as sourcing data from CMSs, adding analytics, integrating with various APIs, and much more.
  • Strong Community Support
    Gatsby has a robust and active community that provides ample documentation, tutorials, and support to help you get started and troubleshoot issues.
  • Secure and Scalable
    Since Gatsby sites are static, they are inherently more secure against traditional web-based vulnerabilities and can be scaled easily by deploying to a CDN.

Possible disadvantages of GatsbyJS

  • Build Time
    For larger sites, build times can become noticeably long as Gatsby rebuilds the entire site. This can be a bottleneck for frequent updates.
  • Less Suitable for Dynamic Content
    Since Gatsby generates static pages, it's less suited for applications that require real-time data updates or dynamic content unless they are integrated with client-side JS or third-party services.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    Getting started with Gatsby can be complex for beginners unfamiliar with React and GraphQL, as it requires knowledge of these technologies.
  • GraphQL Learning Curve
    A significant part of customizing and extending Gatsby sites involves GraphQL queries, which can be a barrier for developers who are not yet familiar with GraphQL.
  • Plugin Quality Variability
    While Gatsby has a rich plugin ecosystem, the quality and maintenance of plugins can vary, requiring developers to vet the plugins they choose to integrate into their projects.

Analysis of Jekyll

Overall verdict

  • Jekyll is a good choice for individuals and organizations looking for a straightforward, reliable, and efficient way to build static websites. Its strengths include simplicity, flexibility, and strong community support, which contribute to a smooth development experience.

Why this product is good

  • Jekyll is a popular static site generator that is widely appreciated for its simplicity, speed, and ease of use. It is particularly suited for creating blogs and simple websites, leveraging Markdown and Liquid templates to generate static HTML content. Its integration with GitHub Pages also makes it a convenient choice for developers and non-developers alike who want to host their sites directly from their GitHub repositories without additional setup or cost.

Recommended for

  • Bloggers and content creators looking for a simple way to publish content online.
  • Developers who prefer writing in Markdown and managing content with a version control system.
  • Users who want to host their sites for free using GitHub Pages.
  • Anyone in need of a static site generator that is easy to set up, customize, and maintain with minimal resources.

Jekyll videos

Getting Started With Jekyll, The Static Site Generator

GatsbyJS videos

The Great Gatsby - Movie Review by Chris Stuckmann

More videos:

  • Review - The Great Gatsby movie review
  • Review - The Ultimate Gatsby Moving Rubber Review!

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Jekyll and GatsbyJS)
CMS
76 76%
24% 24
Blogging
78 78%
22% 22
Static Site Generators
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Jekyll and GatsbyJS

Jekyll Reviews

Best Gitbook Alternatives You Need to Try in 2023
Jekyll is a static site generator often used to create blogs and websites, similar to Gitbook in its ability to generate documentation from markdown files. Jekyll is built in Ruby and is known for its flexibility and ease of use. It also has a large community and a wide variety of plugins and themes available. Jekyll's main advantage is that it is highly customizable,...
Source: www.archbee.com
11 Popular Free And Open Source WordPress CMS alternatives in 2021
Unlike some listed alternatives, Jekyll is also a static site generator so it lays in the same category. It uses Ruby and we would say it's simpler, free, and open-source CMS software.
Source: medevel.com
10 static site generators to watch in 2021
Perhaps most conveniently described as Jekyll implemented with JavaScript rather than Ruby, Eleventy has now moved beyond that while retaining a clear and simple on-ramp, and only shipping to the browser what you tell it too. As with Jekyll and Hugo, no JavaScript frameworks are auto-baked in.
Source: www.netlify.com
Hugo vs Jekyll: an Epic Battle of Static Site Generator Themes
Jekyll isn’t strict with its content location. It expects pages in the root of your site, and will build whatever’s there. Here’s how you might organize these pages in your Jekyll site root:
9 Reasons I Think Craft is the Best CMS on the Market Today
Craft CMS is simple, minimalistic, agile and has every capability a modern CMS framework needs. Over the past ten years we have worked with every CMS you could think of (Wordpress, Drupal, Rails+ActiveAdmin, Ghost, Weebly, DjangoCMS, Jekyll, Joomla, Tumblr, Squarespace, Expression Engine, Statamic, Blogger)… here are the reasons why we’ve landed firmly with Craft as our №1...
Source: hackernoon.com

GatsbyJS Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
Gatsby JS is a free, open-source, React-based framework that is used to create static websites. It has a great ecosystem of plugins that serve various needs like sourcing data from CMSs, integrating tools, managing images using lazy loading, and more.
Source: solguruz.com
Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
Gatsby allows you to add plugins with versatile functions and customization to increase your efficiency when developing websites. Here, you can use multiple styling approaches like Sass and CSS-in-JS library solutions to build web pages more smoothly. Moreover, using Gatsby as an alternative to Next.Js provides you with a complete learning guide to enhance your developing...
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
A React-based maestro, Gatsby transforms the way sites come to life by hooking into a rich set of data sources. Picture this: a web that’s blazing fast, where your creations go live almost before you hit ‘publish’. That’s Gatsby for you. Inside its engine, it’s got GraphQL superpowers, making data dancing across your pages a breeze.
10 Best Next.js Alternatives to Consider Today
A React-based framework, Gatsby excels in crafting static websites renowned for their exceptional performance. Leveraging GraphQL, Gatsby efficiently pulls data from diverse sources, empowering developers to build dynamic, data-driven websites effortlessly. Its expansive plugin ecosystem allows seamless integration with various data providers, content management systems...
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Gatsby lets users pull data from any data source imaginable – CMS like WordPress, Drupal, Netlify, Contentful, etc., or APIs, databases, or simple markdown. Unlike Next.js, which we discussed above, Gatsby does not perform server-side rendering. Instead, it generates HTML content on the client side during build time. As a result, Gatsby delivers blazing-fast performance,...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Jekyll seems to be a lot more popular than GatsbyJS. While we know about 195 links to Jekyll, we've tracked only 16 mentions of GatsbyJS. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Jekyll mentions (195)

  • Building PicoSSG: 'Just Enough Code'
    The static site generator (SSG) landscape is crowded with feature-rich but increasingly complex solutions. As I looked at and used tools like lume, 11ty, lektor, or jekyll, I found myself drowning in configuration options, plugins, and middleware. What started as a simple desire to convert Markdown content into HTML had evolved into learning complex frameworks with steep learning curves. - Source: dev.to / 30 days ago
  • How to create a blog with Quartz, GitHub, and Cloudflare
    If you don't want to use Jekyll as your static site generator for GitHub Pages and you want to have a custom domain for your GitHub Pages. This post is for you! - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Blogging with Obsidian and Jekyll
    Jekyll is a static site generator that transforms Markdown files into a fully functional website. Everything is generated into plain HTML, which makes it simple to deploy on platforms like GitHub Pages. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Create a Blogging Platform With No Backend (Zero Hosting Fee)
    Obviously, there are a dozen choices for generating static websites (efficiently and quickly), from the classic Jekyll to the new Next.js. And you are good to go with any of them as long as your confident with it. I choose 11ty because:. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • It's easy to dev blog
    In your repository settings you need to turn on GitHub Pages to make it pull Jekyll content (that's the magic✨ default GitHub Pages build tool) from your GitHub repository. - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
View more

GatsbyJS mentions (16)

  • React SEO: How to Build Search-Friendly Pages in React
    The most famous frameworks for developing SSR applications are Gatsby and Next.js. Although there are differences between them, their main goal is similar: to allow next-generation web applications to remain blazing-fast. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • External content for GatsbyJS
    If you enjoy React and want a standard-compliant and high performance web, you should look at GatsbyJS. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Replatforming from Gatsby to Zola!
    Since around 2019 I have used Gatsby as my static site generator. Its plugin system makes it super feature extensible. It uses React under the hood which makes components easy to write and has tons of community support. Once I had a Gatsby site styled and running, publishing blog posts is fairly trivial:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Build a Documentation Website with Gatsby in 10 Mins
    Smooth DOC is a ready-to-use Gatsby theme to create a documentation website. Creating a pro-quality website like this one takes weeks. Smooth DOC saves you time and lets you focus on the content. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Where to begin?
    I'd start with learning HTML and CSS first, then Javascript after those. There are a lot of free online resources for learning those. For websites, I use jekyll which is a great way to start off because there are a lot of community website templates that you can customize, which is great for beginners and learning. Then I'd recommend learning/moving to React. The Gatsby website generator would be good for React... Source: almost 3 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Jekyll and GatsbyJS, you can also consider the following products

Hugo - Hugo is a general-purpose website framework for generating static web pages.

Ghost - Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Hexo - A fast, simple & powerful blog framework, powered by Node.js

GitHub Pages - A free, static web host for open-source projects on GitHub

Grav - The modern open source flat-file CMS