Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Jekyll VS Grav

Compare Jekyll VS Grav and see what are their differences

Jekyll logo Jekyll

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

Grav logo Grav

The modern open source flat-file CMS
  • Jekyll Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-17
  • Grav Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-18

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 doesnโ€™t have built-in support for many features out of the box, which might require you to manually implement or rely on plugins.

Grav features and specs

  • Flat-file architecture
    Grav is a flat-file CMS, which means it doesn't rely on a database. It stores content in files and folders, making it easy to manage, version control, and requiring less server resources.
  • Performance
    Without a database layer, Grav can deliver faster load times and better performance, especially critical for high traffic websites.
  • Flexibility and Customization
    Grav is highly customizable with a flexible API that allows developers to build and extend functionalities effortlessly.
  • Ease of Installation and Setup
    Grav boasts a simple setup process. You can get started quickly without complex configurations, making it accessible for both developers and non-developers.
  • Strong Community and Documentation
    Grav has an active community that provides robust support. The extensive documentation helps users get through the learning curve quickly.
  • Security
    Flat-file systems like Grav are typically less vulnerable to common database-related security issues like SQL injection attacks.
  • Themes and Plugins
    Grav offers a variety of themes and plugins that enhance its functionality, allowing users to add new features without extensive coding.

Possible disadvantages of Grav

  • Learning Curve
    Although Grav has good documentation, it can have a steeper learning curve for those unfamiliar with flat-file CMSs or who come from traditional database-driven CMS backgrounds.
  • Not Ideal for Large-scale Projects
    Flat-file systems can become cumbersome to manage as the scale of content grows, making Grav less suitable for large-scale websites with extensive content.
  • Limited Third-party Integrations
    Grav may not have as many third-party integrations available compared to more established CMS platforms like WordPress, potentially limiting its functionality.
  • Hosting Requirements
    While Grav doesn't need a database, it still requires a hosting environment that supports PHP. Some shared hosting services may not offer the ideal settings out-of-the-box.
  • Smaller Ecosystem
    Grav has a smaller user base compared to more established CMSs, which can mean fewer community-created plugins and themes.
  • No Default GUI for Content Editing
    Grav does not natively offer a graphical user interface for content editing, which can be a drawback for non-technical users. Though Admin Panel plugin exists, it is not default.

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.

Analysis of Grav

Overall verdict

  • Grav is an excellent choice for those who need a fast, flexible, and lightweight CMS without the complexity of a database. It's particularly beneficial for developers who appreciate customizability and control over their project configurations. However, it may not be the best option for non-technical users who require a more traditional CMS experience with extensive support and resources.

Why this product is good

  • Grav is a modern open-source flat-file CMS that is designed for speed, simplicity, and flexibility. It requires no database, which makes it lightweight and significantly easier to deploy. Grav offers a powerful API, integrated package manager, sophisticated caching system, and an intuitive admin panel, making it a strong choice for developers who require customizable and scalable solutions.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking for a fast and flexible CMS.
  • Users who prefer flat-file over traditional database-driven CMSs.
  • Projects where performance and speed are critical.
  • Websites with less complex needs that don't require extensive plugins or themes.

Jekyll videos

Getting Started With Jekyll, The Static Site Generator

Grav videos

GRAV Dugout Review

More videos:

  • Review - Newest GRAV Hand Pipes
  • Review - Upline Collection from GRAV // 420 Science Club

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Jekyll and Grav)
CMS
61 61%
39% 39
Blogging
64 64%
36% 36
Static Site Generators
100 100%
0% 0
Website Builder
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 Grav

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 inย 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 isnโ€™t strict with its content location. It expects pages in the root of your site, and will build whateverโ€™s there. Hereโ€™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)โ€ฆ here are the reasons why weโ€™ve landed firmly with Craft as our โ„–1...
Source: hackernoon.com

Grav Reviews

11 Popular Free And Open Source WordPress CMS alternatives in 2021
It comes with a powerful API and extensive hooks that allow for plugins to extend Grav. Flexible Twig templating allows the easy realization of your designs.
Source: medevel.com
Top 5 Open-Source CMS Platforms
As fascinating as its logo, the Grav CMS platform is another modern, sleek, and interactive cross-platform compatible platform to design and create websites. Not as popular as others in the list, i.e., WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal, this CMS platform is yet a tough competitor of the existing CMS giants. The open-source CMS platform was launched in 2014 and since then the...
Source: linuxways.net
Resources20+ Non-Traditional Tools to Make Your Website
Modern open source flat-file CMS to build faster http://s/. Grav is a fast, simple, and flexible file-based web-platform. There is zero installation required. Grav focuses primarily on your content and turns your content structure into a navigable site.
CMS comparison 2018: The 5 most popular open source systems
Grav places a high value on speed, but doesnโ€™t disregard the aesthetic aspect. On the official website, you can find both the installation data (a small ZIP archive) as well as individual themes that can be used to customize the design. You can also extend the functionality with more than 300 plugins, with which you can set up the backend for administration work, for...
Source: www.1and1.com
Goodbye Statamic. Hello Grav.
Whilst looking for other options, I stumbled upon Grav, which as far as I've been able to tell is incredibly similar to Statamic. It has a really nice admin interface, plugins including search, and best of all it's completely free. The community seems strong, and I've not had too many issues trying to find help. It took me the best part of a day to switch my little site here...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Jekyll should be more popular than Grav. It has been mentiond 199 times since March 2021. 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 (199)

  • Introducing: Postwave
    After writing your posts in Markdown you can then display them however you'd like on your site through the built in Postwave Ruby client. This is where Postwave differs from static blog engines like Jekyll or Hugo which take the Markdown posts and generate a site for you. - Source: dev.to / 14 days ago
  • How to Build a Python MCP Server to Consult a Knowledge Base
    But that's not the case. The blog is a simple static generated website using Jekyll, it is built and served through GitHub Pages. With that in mind it makes more sense to use tools and leverage tool calling. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • I Tried 15 of the Best Documentation Tools โ€” Hereโ€™s What Actually Works in 2025
    Jekyll is one of the oldest and most established static site generators. Itโ€™s tightly integrated with GitHub Pages, making deployment super easy. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Jekyll auto posts from YouTube feeds
    I wanted to automate this boring and repetitive workflow: my idea is that every Time a YouTube video is published on my channel I want to have an associated Post on my personal Jekyll blog. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • 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 / 5 months ago
View more

Grav mentions (57)

  • Ask HN: Looking for Headless CMS Recommendation
    If you're hell-bent on headless, I can personally recommend 11ty (https://www.11ty.dev/) and hugo (https://gohugo.io/). That said, for non-technical admins, you probably want a user interface. For that, Ghost (https://ghost.org/) and Grav (https://getgrav.org/). Or Wordpress! - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web
    Migrating to SSG is definitely one of the options! I do wonder what other CMSes people do enjoy, though. My blog runs on Grav, a flat file CMS that still allows me to easily keep the content in Git, while also having some dynamic content and search (and optionally an admin UI): https://getgrav.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Aether: A CMS That Gets Out of Your Way
    > Aether sits in the sweet spot: simple enough for content creators, flexible enough for developers, fast enough for users. A thing that most other developers miss is that non-technical people, like (and especially) content creator,s shy away from a terminal as if it were such a plague. Some of them don't even have the mind concept of a directory tree, from a root drive to nested ones. Therefore, if you have to... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • My blog doesn't need quality, it needs to look like it's from the 90s
    Perhaps "polish" or "a sleek, modern UI" would have been slightly better wording on my part in regards to the look, but otherwise I'm quite happy that I settled on Grav and also the idea of versioning everything in Git, alongside a CI/CD pipeline, instead of one long lived instance on the server. Grav is pretty cool: https://getgrav.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Ask HN: Do you still self-host a blog? What's your publishing stack?
    Is there a particular stack you prefer? If JS, maybe consider Astro (for simple blogs)? It has built-in MDX support and deploys in a few seconds. If PHP, maybe https://getgrav.org/? For Go or a prebuilt binary, maybe https://gohugo.io/? - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

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.

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.

Drupal - Drupal - the leading open-source CMS for ambitious digital experiences that reach your audience across multiple channels. Because we all have different needs, Drupal allows you to create a unique space in a world of cookie-cutter solutions.

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

Joomla - Joomla! is the mobile-ready and user-friendly way to build your website. Choose from thousands of features and designs. Joomla! is free and open source.