Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

VuePress VS Hugo

Compare VuePress VS Hugo and see what are their differences

VuePress logo VuePress

A static site generator by Vue.js 🛠️

Hugo logo Hugo

Hugo is a general-purpose website framework for generating static web pages.
  • VuePress Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-30
  • Hugo Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21

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.

Hugo features and specs

  • Performance
    Hugo is extremely fast, capable of generating websites with thousands of pages in milliseconds, making it one of the fastest static site generators available.
  • Flexible Content Management
    Hugo supports multiple content types, taxonomies, menus, and dynamic API-driven content, offering a high level of flexibility for different site architectures.
  • Ease of Use
    Hugo’s straightforward installation process and simple configuration files make it accessible, even for beginners.
  • Extended Markdown
    It extends standard Markdown with additional shortcodes, which allows embedding rich content like videos, tweets, and more with simple syntax.
  • Large Community and Plugins
    Hugo has a large and active community that develops themes and plugins, providing ample resources and support for developers.
  • Inbuilt Server
    Hugo comes with a built-in server for local development, enabling real-time previews and speeding up the development process.

Possible disadvantages of Hugo

  • Learning Curve
    Despite its simplicity, Hugo’s template language and content rendering system can be complex for beginners to grasp initially.
  • Limited Dynamic Features
    As a static site generator, Hugo is not ideal for websites that require real-time data processing or dynamic content generation without additional tooling and integration.
  • Go-based Templating
    Hugo uses Go-based templating, which might be unfamiliar to developers accustomed to other templating engines such as Liquid, Handlebars, or Mustache.
  • Lack of Built-in CMS
    Unlike some other static site generators, Hugo does not come with its own CMS interface, which can be a downside for users who prefer a graphical content management system.
  • Dependency on Command Line
    Using Hugo effectively requires comfort with command-line interfaces, which can be a barrier to less technical users.

VuePress videos

VuePress - Static Site Generator

Hugo videos

Hugo - Movie Review by Chris Stuckmann

More videos:

  • Review - Hugo - A Love Letter to Cinema
  • Review - Hugo Review (funny movie review)

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to VuePress and Hugo)
CMS
22 22%
78% 78
Blogging
11 11%
89% 89
Static Site Generators
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

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.

Hugo Reviews

Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
If you are looking for a powerful static website generator, Hugo is a good alternative to Next.js. You can build multilingual websites much faster and in a simple way that no other platform will offer you. Furthermore, this platform will increase your experience in creating websites with beautiful Markdown syntax and pre-built features like commenting.
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
Certainly. Jekyll and Hugo are popular static site generators that don’t rely on React.js. Jekyll uses Ruby, while Hugo is renowned for its speed and simplicity. These options are excellent for projects focusing on content-driven sites without heavy JavaScript frameworks.
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
Hugo does something similar with its menu templates. You can define menu links in your Hugo site config, and even add useful properties that Hugo understands, like weighting. Here’s a definition of the menu above in config.yaml:
Top Static Site Generators For 2019
Hugo is a static site generator which is also very popular which is proven by over 30,000 stars on GitHub right now. Hugo is based on the Go programming language which is great if you have already gained some knowledge of Go. Hugo claims that it is the fastest framework for building websites. In fact Hugo comes with an ultra-fast build process and makes building static...
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Hugo seems to be a lot more popular than VuePress. While we know about 385 links to Hugo, we've tracked only 33 mentions of VuePress. 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.

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 / 5 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 / 10 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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Hugo mentions (385)

  • Ask HN: Static Site (not blog) Generator?
    Try Hugo[1]. In depends on a template you choose alone whether Hugo will generate a landing page, a website, a blog, etc. [1] https://gohugo.io. - Source: Hacker News / 5 days ago
  • 🥳 We built the cli of our dreams to send sms ❣️
    The content of the guide lives in a single Markdown file, content/_index.md. The website is built using Hugo. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Add Pagefind Search to Hugo
    Every PKMS/BASB needs a search functionality. Ever since I've created brainfck to host my own collection of thoughts/ideas/resources (aka Zettelkasten) I wanted to be able to actually search within my collection of org-roam based notes. Meanwhile for all my sites I own (this blog, my CV/portfolio, brainfck and defersec) I use hugo. All of them didn't have proper search capabilities. That's why I was looking for a... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Fast-Track Your Static Site: Deploying Hugo with Pulumi on AWS S3
    This project demonstrates how to deploy a static website using Hugo and Pulumi on AWS S3. Hugo is a fast static site generator, and Pulumi is an infrastructure-as-code tool that allows you to define cloud resources using TypeScript. The site is deployed to an S3 bucket configured as a static website, with public access enabled for viewing. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month 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 / about 1 month ago
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What are some alternatives?

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

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

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

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.

Sanity.io - Sanity.io a platform for structured content that comes with an open-source editor that you can customize with React.js.

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.

Publii - Open Source CMS for Static Websites