Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

MiddleMan VS Gridsome

Compare MiddleMan VS Gridsome and see what are their differences

MiddleMan logo MiddleMan

A static site generator using all the shortcuts and tools in modern web development

Gridsome logo Gridsome

Gridsome is a free & open source Vue.js-powered framework for building websites & apps that are fast by default 🚀.
  • MiddleMan Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-17
  • Gridsome Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-15

MiddleMan features and specs

  • Static Site Generation
    Middleman is a static site generator, which means it can create fast, secure, and easily deployable websites without the need for a backend server.
  • Flexibility
    Middleman offers a high degree of flexibility, allowing developers to customize and extend their sites through a variety of plugins and third-party integrations.
  • Simplicity
    The platform simplifies the development process by providing a straightforward approach to creating static pages, allowing developers to focus on content and design.
  • Ruby-based
    As a Ruby-based framework, it integrates well with the Ruby ecosystem, making it an excellent choice for developers familiar with Ruby.
  • Easy Templating
    Middleman supports various templating engines like ERB, Haml, and Slim, enabling developers to use their preferred syntax for building web pages.

Possible disadvantages of MiddleMan

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For those not familiar with Ruby or static site generators, Middleman may have a steep learning curve, requiring additional time to become proficient.
  • Community Size
    Middleman has a smaller community compared to some other static site generators, which may result in fewer resources and less community support.
  • Complexity for Large Sites
    While excellent for smaller sites, managing large sites and content-heavy projects can become complex and cumbersome in Middleman.
  • Deployment
    Although static sites are easy to deploy in general, Middleman does not provide built-in deployment tools, requiring additional setup for deployment solutions.
  • Ruby Dependency
    Being dependent on Ruby, Middleman might not be suitable for teams or projects that do not use Ruby, thus limiting its adoption across different tech stacks.

Gridsome features and specs

  • Performance
    Gridsome generates static sites that are highly optimized and fast. Since the sites are pre-rendered and served as static files, they load quickly, which is beneficial for user experience and SEO.
  • Scalability
    Static sites generated by Gridsome can easily scale to handle high traffic loads without the need for complex server-side infrastructure, making it ideal for websites with fluctuating traffic.
  • GraphQL Integration
    Gridsome uses GraphQL to query data from various sources, providing a unified and efficient way to fetch and manage data, and allowing developers to request only the data they need.
  • Vue.js Ecosystem
    As a framework built on top of Vue.js, Gridsome allows developers to leverage the powerful features and community support of Vue, including components, libraries, and tools.
  • SEO Friendly
    Gridsome supports pre-rendering and dynamic routing, which help in creating SEO-optimized websites that are easy for search engines to index.

Possible disadvantages of Gridsome

  • Build Time
    For large sites with extensive content, the build times can be significant, potentially impacting deployment speed and productivity when making frequent changes.
  • Limited Interactivity
    Since Gridsome generates static pages, implementing highly dynamic or real-time features requires additional client-side development, potentially increasing complexity.
  • Plugin Ecosystem
    Compared to more mature static site generators or full-fledged frameworks, Gridsome's plugin ecosystem is relatively smaller, which might limit out-of-the-box functionalities.
  • Learning Curve
    Developers new to Vue.js or GraphQL might face a steeper learning curve when initially adopting Gridsome, requiring time to become productive.
  • Community Size
    Gridsome's community is smaller compared to other popular frameworks, which might impact the availability of resources, support, and third-party contributions.

Analysis of MiddleMan

Overall verdict

  • MiddleMan is a solid choice for developers looking for a Ruby-based static site generator. Its ease of use, combined with robust functionality and strong community support, makes it a reliable option. However, it might not be the best fit for those unfamiliar with Ruby or looking for a solution that requires minimal configuration.

Why this product is good

  • MiddleMan is a popular static site generator that is known for its simplicity and flexibility. It is ideal for developers who prefer to work with Ruby and want a tool that integrates smoothly into their existing workflow. MiddleMan provides a variety of extensions and configurations, allowing users to customize their static sites with ease. The active community and extensive documentation make it accessible for both beginners and experienced developers.

Recommended for

    MiddleMan is recommended for developers who are already comfortable with Ruby and are looking for a flexible, customizable solution for building static websites. It's particularly suited for those who appreciate extensive documentation and a wide range of community-driven extensions.

Analysis of Gridsome

Overall verdict

  • Gridsome is a strong choice for developers familiar with Vue.js who want to build static sites with enhanced performance and flexibility. Its modern development experience and robust feature set position it as a viable alternative to traditional CMS or server-side rendered options, particularly for projects prioritizing speed and security.

Why this product is good

  • Gridsome is a popular static site generator that leverages the power of Vue.js to build fast, secure, and scalable websites. It offers a smooth integration with various CMSs and APIs, providing flexibility in how content is sourced and displayed. Developers appreciate its GraphQL layer, which allows for querying content in an intuitive and efficient way. Gridsome's focus on performance through code-splitting, lazy loading, and prefetching makes it an attractive choice for building high-performing sites.

Recommended for

  • Developers familiar with Vue.js
  • Projects requiring fast and optimized static sites
  • Websites sourcing content from various APIs or CMSs
  • SEO-focused projects thanks to its pre-rendering capabilities
  • Developers seeking a modern development workflow with features like hot-reloading and GraphQL

MiddleMan videos

Reviewing The Middleman: The Complete Series Indispensability!

More videos:

  • Tutorial - How to start a Middleman Transaction - Epicnpc.com
  • Review - Book Review : The Middleman by Shankar

Gridsome videos

What is Gridsome Static Site Generation

More videos:

  • Review - Nuxt.js vs VuePress: Battle For The Best Blog App // Nuxt vs Gridsome
  • Tutorial - How to build a movie review website with GRIDSOME and STATICMAN

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to MiddleMan and Gridsome)
CMS
58 58%
42% 42
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Blogging
54 54%
46% 46
Blogging Platform
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using MiddleMan and Gridsome. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

MiddleMan Reviews

We have no reviews of MiddleMan yet.
Be the first one to post

Gridsome Reviews

Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
To build your web pages with ultra-performance, Gridsome offers you instant hot-reloading for any code change. This framework allows you to get asset optimization and progressive images that you can use with perfect page speed scores. Notably, this Next.js alternative can manage thousands to millions of hits without slowing your workflow.
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
Gridsome is to Vue.js what Gatsby is to React. A static site generation darling, it merges Vue with GraphQL and a suite of top-notch developer delights. It’s striking the perfect chord for devs digging data-driven JAMstack websites that are built to impress.
10 static site generators to watch in 2021
Gridsome is a Vue.js-powered framework for building static generated websites & apps. Leading with the phrase “fast by default”, Gridsome generates an HTML and also a JSON file for every page of your site and then uses progressive enhancement to add some client-side utilities to give you things like link pre-fetching based on the when links come into view, code splitting,...
Source: www.netlify.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Gridsome should be more popular than MiddleMan. It has been mentiond 22 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.

MiddleMan mentions (11)

  • “Make” as a Static Site Generator
    Most of the Static Site Generators default to generating blog from markdown, which is not feasible for company websites etc. For such projects I like Middleman (https://middlemanapp.com) which provides layouts/partials and things like haml templates. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Bloggers who host statically, do you use Jekyll or Pelican to roll your blog posts?
    I've done similar with Middleman, and I'm 99% sure you could set this up with Pelican if you wanted. It sounds like the site generation workflow is the issue rather than the tool. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Show HN: Self-hosted CMS on Cloudflare for podcast/blog/images/videos/docs/URLs
    I use middleman[^1] + bulmaCSS + FontAwesome but host on github using the `github.io` domain and upload podcasts to "archive.org"[^2]. The reason I choose this setup is because I want the content to survive as much as possible, hence open source technology and "free & long lived" hosting were requirements. [^1]: https://middlemanapp.com/ [^2]: https://archive.org/. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
  • Web app architecture design process guidance
    Thanks u/Draegan88, but what's Middleman got to do with app architecture & design/ERD/schema design? Source: over 2 years ago
  • CMS > MiddlemanApp > static Site - how to start middleman on heroku?
    A simple middleman app consumes the data and builds a static export that runs standalone (just HTML, CSS and some JS files). That gets FTP'd/released to the webserver. Source: over 3 years ago
View more

Gridsome mentions (22)

  • How Bun can help to revive a Gridsome project
    This website is built with Gridsome — one of the oldest static site generators, which is practically not maintained anymore. It causes some troubles for working with websites based on it, specifically the necessity to use Node.js v14 which is quite obsolete and poorly supported on all the public deployment platforms, including Netlify. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • My Sixth Year as a Bootstrapped Founder
    Thanks for reading! The web tech stack is actually one of my biggest regrets. It's a static site generator called Gridsome[0] that the maintainers abandoned about three months after I used it to launch the TinyPilot website. At the time I made the TinyPilot site, I was very excited about Vue, so a Vue-based SSG seemed great. Since then, I've come to find SPAs and most frontend frameworks to be way too much... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • How To Choose the Best Static Site Generator and Deploy it to Kinsta for Free
    Nuxt.js and Gridsome are tailor-made for Vue.js developers. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Top ten popular static site generators (SSG) in 2023
    Gridsome — Jamstack SSG tool for Vue developers. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Will anyone hire a 33 yo newbie?
    Node is basically back-end Javascript. While powerful alone, almost exclusively you will use a back-end framework like Next.js or Gatsby when using React, and then maybe Nuxt or Gridsome in Vue. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing MiddleMan and Gridsome, you can also consider the following products

GatsbyJS - Blazing-fast static site generator for React

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

Nuxt.js - Nuxt.js presets all the configuration needed to make your development of a Vue.js application enjoyable. It's a perfect static site generator.

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

Doxygen - Generate documentation from source code

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