Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Metalsmith VS VuePress

Compare Metalsmith VS VuePress and see what are their differences

Metalsmith logo Metalsmith

An extremely simple, pluggable static site generator.

VuePress logo VuePress

A static site generator by Vue.js 🛠️
  • Metalsmith Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-12-12
  • VuePress Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-30

Metalsmith features and specs

  • Flexible Architecture
    Metalsmith has a simple, yet powerful, plugin-based architecture that allows developers to easily customize and extend functionality to suit their specific needs.
  • Minimalistic Core
    Its lightweight core handles only the basic functions, which ensures that the site generation is fast and efficient, allowing you to only add what you need through plugins.
  • Ease of Use
    The straightforward configuration and operation of Metalsmith make it accessible for users, with minimal setup required to get started.
  • Active Community
    A vibrant community provides ample plugins and support, making it easier to find existing solutions and get help when you encounter issues.
  • Language Flexibility
    Being written in JavaScript and built on Node.js, it fits neatly within the modern web development ecosystem and is accessible to JavaScript developers.

Possible disadvantages of Metalsmith

  • Steeper Learning Curve for Beginners
    Users without prior experience in static site generators or those unfamiliar with Node.js might find the initial setup and understanding of its plugin-based system challenging.
  • Limited Official Documentation
    While there is basic documentation available, the official resources can be sparse, which might make it difficult for new users to get up to speed quickly without community assistance.
  • Maintenance Overhead
    With its heavy reliance on plugins, projects can become tricky to manage over time, especially if key plugins become obsolete or unmaintained.
  • Manual Plugin Integration
    Since all additional features need to be added through plugins, users must invest time in searching for, evaluating, and integrating these plugins to get desired functionalities.
  • Not Opinionated
    While this is a strength for flexibility, it can also be a downside as it doesn't provide a structured path for common use cases, requiring more decisions from the user.

VuePress features and specs

  • Markdown-Centric
    VuePress is designed to work seamlessly with Markdown, offering a simple and intuitive way to create and manage documentation.
  • Vue.js Integration
    Being built on Vue.js, VuePress allows for easy integration of custom components, which can enrich the documentation with interactive elements.
  • Default Theme
    VuePress comes with a well-designed default theme which is optimized for technical documentation out-of-the-box.
  • Static Site Generation
    VuePress generates static HTML files for every page, which can be deployed easily and offer better performance and SEO.
  • Extensive Plugin Ecosystem
    A wide array of plugins is available, making it easy to add extra functionalities like search, analytics, and much more.
  • Hot Reloading
    Thanks to Vue.js, VuePress enjoys hot-reloading, providing a fast and interactive development experience.
  • Ease of Deployment
    Static files generated by VuePress can be deployed on any static site hosting services like GitHub Pages, Netlify, or Vercel.

Possible disadvantages of VuePress

  • Learning Curve
    Users not familiar with Vue.js might find it challenging to fully leverage VuePress's capabilities.
  • Limited Default Themes
    While the default theme is robust for documentation, there are limited built-in themes, which may require custom development for more diverse needs.
  • Plugin Management
    Managing a large number of plugins can become complex and may introduce compatibility issues or bloat.
  • Configuration Complexity
    Advanced configurations can become complex and may require a deeper understanding of both Vue.js and the VuePress ecosystem.
  • Community Size
    VuePress's community is smaller compared to some other static site generators like Jekyll or Hugo, which might limit the available support and resources.
  • Performance for Large Sites
    For very large sites with thousands of pages, build times can become considerably long, requiring additional configuration and optimization.
  • SEO Limitations
    While static HTML improves SEO, dynamically generated content through Vue components may require additional configuration and optimization to be SEO-friendly.

Analysis of VuePress

Overall verdict

  • VuePress is a strong choice if you are looking to write documentation or static sites, especially if you are already comfortable with Vue.js. Its simplicity, coupled with the ability to leverage Vue components, makes it a flexible and powerful tool. However, for general-purpose static site generation, other tools might be more suitable depending on the specific use case and requirements.

Why this product is good

  • VuePress is a popular static site generator that is particularly well-suited for creating documentation sites. It is built on Vue.js, which means that if you have experience with Vue, you will find VuePress quite accessible. It provides a default theme designed for documentation out of the box, enabling developers to get started quickly without needing extensive configuration or customization. Additionally, it supports markdown, which is familiar and easy for most developers and writers to use. The ecosystem is supported by a vibrant community, and there are various plugins and themes available to extend the base functionality.

Recommended for

  • Developers who are familiar with Vue.js and want to create documentation sites.
  • Projects that require static site generation while having the flexibility to include interactive elements via Vue components.
  • Users who prefer writing content in markdown and want to take advantage of VuePress’s markdown capabilities and plugins.

Metalsmith videos

Product Review 29 Badger Metalsmith Paint System

More videos:

  • Review - METALSMITHING FAQ! Answers to most commonly asked questions from you guys!
  • Review - DRAWING & SAWING jewelry design in real time. Jewelry metalsmithing

VuePress videos

VuePress - Static Site Generator

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Metalsmith and VuePress)
CMS
27 27%
73% 73
Blogging
33 33%
67% 67
Blogging Platform
43 43%
57% 57
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 Metalsmith and VuePress

Metalsmith Reviews

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VuePress Reviews

Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
VuePress prioritizes simplicity to increase your project’s workflow without hassling into complex methods. It allows you to generate pre-rendered static HTML to present responsive pages. Moreover, you can customize your site without any configuration; just run the commands to create the directory inside your docs directory.
15 of the Most Interesting Vue UI Component Libraries for 2023
The use of VuePress opens up a lot of possibilities for your project — like automating your documentation process. It is easy to integrate into your existing application, too. However, a considerable drawback is that SEO support is still new, and the documentaiton does not focus on this topic yet.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, VuePress should be more popular than Metalsmith. It has been mentiond 33 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.

Metalsmith mentions (6)

  • Top ten popular static site generators (SSG) in 2023
    Metalsmith — the best customizable SSG. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • who is self-hosting a static website and what are you using to build it?
    I use Metalsmith. Been happy with it. I build my site into a self-contained nginx docker image. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Configuration error even if nothing changed since last successful deploy
    Const Metalsmith = require('metalsmith') Const markdown = require('@metalsmith/markdown') Const layouts = require('metalsmith-layouts') Const permalinks = require('@metalsmith/permalinks') Const collections = require('metalsmith-collections') Metalsmith(__dirname) .metadata({ sitename: 'Website Name', description: "Website description.", generator: 'Metalsmith', url: 'https://metalsmith.io/' ... Source: about 3 years ago
  • Why I built my own static site generator
    A static site generator I've been enjoying lately (and using for my blog) is Metalsmith: https://metalsmith.io/ It feel like it's the best of both worlds, because it's simple to learn and customize, but there are plugins for the things you don't want to spend time writing yourself. For example, I'm using plugins to: check for broken links, generate an RSS feed, and run a test server with automatic reloading. But... - Source: Hacker News / over 3 years ago
  • What to use? Frustrated over choice...
    I really like using Metalsmith as a static site generator myself. It's incredibly lightweight and you can extend it in any direction you like if you feel the need. But if you want an out-of-the-box solution, grab something like Gatsby or Hugo. This site has a big list of them. Source: about 4 years ago
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VuePress mentions (33)

  • Top 10 Vue.js libraries you should be using in 2025
    VuePress is a minimalistic Vue-powered static site generator optimized for technical documentation and websites with a focus on content. It is suitable for creating documentation websites, blogs, and other content-focused projects. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Fusion – a hobby OS implemented in Nim
    I use VuePress[0]. You can find the source code for the site here[1]. [0] https://vuepress.vuejs.org [1] https://github.com/khaledh/khaledh.github.io. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Free project idea - documentation framework!
    VuePress - when I searched if it's supporting what I want (conditional rendering), the first result is a bug issue opened 4 years ago, so it doesn't seem to be a good option. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Using links in markdown to navigate files through directories.
    I'm new to IA Writer, and I'm wanting to use it to draft posts for my Vuepress site. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Create a Static Site using VitePress for Beautiful Help Documentation
    VitePress is listed in the documents as VuePress' little brother, and it is built on top of Vite. For those that don't know Vite is a build tool that aims to provide a faster and leaner development experience for modern web projects so it might sense to pair it with a static site generator such as VitePress. One of the original problems with VuePress was that it was a Webpack app and it took a lot of time to spin... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Metalsmith and VuePress, you can also consider the following products

GatsbyJS - Blazing-fast static site generator for React

Forestry.io - A simple CMS for Jekyll and Hugo sites.

Wintersmith - Flexible, minimalistic, multi-platform static site generator built on top of node.js

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

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

Publii - Open Source CMS for Static Websites