All three of these static site generators are good. The differences matter less than people argue about online, and the best choice usually comes down to who on your team will work on the templates and how much interactivity the site needs. I build Mabel for Jekyll, so I will flag that bias up front and keep the comparison itself even-handed.
At a glance
| Jekyll | Hugo | Astro | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Written in | Ruby | Go | JavaScript / TypeScript |
| Install | Ruby and gems | Single binary | Node.js and npm packages |
| Templating | Liquid | Go templates | Astro components (HTML-like), plus optional UI frameworks |
| Content | Markdown, YAML, JSON, CSV | Markdown, YAML, TOML, JSON | Markdown, MDX, content collections |
| Interactivity | Add your own JavaScript | Add your own JavaScript | Built in, per component |
| Typical fit | Blogs and marketing sites | Large content sites | Sites mixing content and interactive parts |
Jekyll
Jekyll is one of the oldest static site generators and is built into GitHub Pages, which made it the default for many developer blogs and documentation sites.
Strengths: simple, well-understood conventions. Posts go in _posts, layouts in _layouts, data in _data. Liquid templates are close to plain HTML and easy for designers to read. The structure is predictable, which helps CMS tools and AI assistants alike.
Weaknesses: it needs Ruby, which can be fiddly to install on some machines. Builds are slower than Hugo on very large sites. Its plugin ecosystem is mature but not growing quickly.
Hugo
Hugo is known for speed. It ships as a single binary with no dependencies, and builds even large sites quickly.
Strengths: very fast builds, nothing to install beyond one file, strong built-in features such as image processing, multilingual support and taxonomies.
Weaknesses: Go templates have a learning curve and their syntax is less forgiving than Liquid. The way Hugo looks up which template to use is powerful but can be confusing at first.
Astro
Astro is the newest of the three and comes from the JavaScript world. Pages are built from components, and by default it ships no JavaScript to the browser unless a component needs it.
Strengths: a modern component model, the option to use UI frameworks for interactive parts, content collections with type-checked front matter and a fast-moving ecosystem.
Weaknesses: it depends on Node.js and npm packages, so there are more dependencies to keep updated. The project moves quickly, which means more frequent upgrades. Teams without JavaScript experience may find it heavier than they need for a simple content site.
Build speed
For a typical marketing site of a few hundred pages, all three build fast enough that it does not matter. Build speed becomes a deciding factor only for sites with many thousands of pages, where Hugo has a clear lead.
Templating and content
Liquid (Jekyll) looks like HTML with tags in curly braces. It is easy to read, which makes it approachable for designers and easy for AI assistants to edit accurately.
Go templates (Hugo) are powerful but terse. Expect a learning period.
Astro components look like HTML with a code block at the top. Comfortable for anyone who knows modern JavaScript; more to take in for anyone who does not.
All three use Markdown with front matter for content, so moving content between them is mostly a matter of adjusting front matter and templates.
Working with AI assistants
All three keep templates and content as readable files in git, which is what matters most for AI-assisted editing. Simpler templating tends to produce more reliable results, and fewer dependencies mean fewer things for an assistant to get wrong. Jekyll and Hugo have the edge on simplicity; Astro has the edge when the site needs real interactive components. See static sites in the agentic age.
CMS support
Each generator stores content in files, so git-based CMS tools can work with all three, though each tool supports some generators better than others. Headless API CMSs work with all three through build-time fetching, and Astro has particularly good support for pulling content from APIs.
When choosing, check that the CMS you want understands your generator’s conventions: where posts live, how drafts work and how front matter is structured. See the complete guide to adding a CMS.
Which to choose
- Jekyll if you want simple conventions, readable templates and a mature ecosystem, and the site is a blog or marketing site. Also a natural fit if you host on GitHub Pages.
- Hugo if the site is large, build speed matters, or you want to avoid installing a language runtime.
- Astro if your team works in JavaScript and the site needs interactive components alongside content.
If you are coming from WordPress, the migration guide covers the move.
My take
For marketing sites run by small teams, I lean towards whichever generator has the simplest templates your designers can read, because they will be the ones changing them, increasingly with an AI assistant. That is often Jekyll, sometimes Hugo. Astro is excellent when the site really needs interactivity, but I would not reach for it just because it is newest.