A static site generator is a program that takes content, webpage design templates and configuration files and based on them generates a directory tree of HTML and other files that represent a website. The resulting website is static in the sense that it does not require CGI or other server-side scripts to serve its content and could as well be distributed as a ZIP file with no HTTP server at all. The content that a static site generator processes into HTML is usually marked up with a lightweight markup language like Markdown.
One popular modern example of a static site generator would be Jekyll . It is written in Ruby.
| Name | License and availability |
|---|---|
| giggle | Open source (BSD license) (?) |
| MajaMaja | Free for non-commercial use |
| Orb Spinner | Commercial, no longer available |
| tclog | Open source (3-clause BSD license) |
| Tclssg | Open source (MIT license) |
dbohdan 2014-06-16: I'm working to replace an ad hoc shell script static site generator with Tcl code. Are there any others written in Tcl?
JM see: http://www.scarpaz.com/MajaMaja/index.html
escargo 2014-06-20: Once upon a time, there was Orb Spinner. Its domain has lapsed and been acquired by somebody else.
The Internet Archive has a captured version from late 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/20061205031222/http://orbspinner.com/
I also use a Ruby site generator called webgen: http://webgen.gettalong.org/
dbohdan 2014-06-26: I've packaged mine as an open source project: Tclssg. It already has about all the functionality I wanted it to have but the documentation is not quite there yet.
dbohdan 2014-07-16: The documentation has rather improved since.
dbohdan 2014-07-19: Added tclog and restructured this page. Tclog has had a Tcler's Wiki article since forever (2003) but dates from before the term "static site generator" was in common use.