Founded

2013

Starting Price

Free

About Hugo

Hugo is an open-source static site generator written in Go that builds websites in milliseconds. It's particularly popular for developer blogs, documentation sites, and content-heavy projects thanks to its blazing-fast build times, Markdown-first workflow, and single-binary installation with zero dependencies.

Pros & Cons

Pros

Fastest static site generator available — builds thousands of pages in under a second
Zero dependencies — single Go binary, no Node.js or Ruby required
Mature and stable with backwards compatibility guarantees
Excellent documentation and active community
Free and open source (Apache 2.0 license)

Cons

Key Features

Sub-second Build Times

Build sites with thousands of pages in milliseconds thanks to Go's performance

Single Binary Installation

No runtime dependencies — just one Go binary to download and run

Markdown & Shortcodes

Built-in Markdown rendering with custom shortcodes for rich content

Taxonomies & Sections

Flexible content organization with custom taxonomies, sections, and archetypes

Image Processing

Built-in image processing and asset pipeline with fingerprinting and minification

Multilingual Support

First-class i18n with per-language content, URL schemes, and translations

LiveReload Dev Server

Built-in development server with automatic browser reload on file changes

Theme Ecosystem

Pricing

Open Source

Free

Full feature set
Apache 2.0 license
Community support

Best For

Developer Blogs

Fast, Markdown-based blogging with syntax highlighting, RSS feeds, and minimal setup

Documentation Sites

Build structured docs with section-based navigation, search, and versioning

Marketing Landing Pages

Deploy blazing-fast static landing pages with zero server overhead

Portfolio Websites

Showcase projects with image processing, taxonomies, and theme customization

Tags:static-site-generator golang open-source developer-tools blogging

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Featured In

#1

7 Best Static Site Generators for Developer Blogs (2026)

Best overall for developer blogs — unmatched build speed and zero-dependency simplicity for developers who write in Markdown and want their tooling to disappear

#2

7 Webflow Alternatives for Developers Who Prefer Code (2026)

Best for developers who prioritize raw build speed and minimal dependencies — Hugo's single binary and millisecond builds are unmatched.

Hugo