Bridgetown vs Franklin
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Bridgetown | Franklin |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 84 · Excellent | 73 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | Julia |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,366 | ★ 1,069 |
| First released | 2020 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, WordPress | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Bridgetown and Franklin?
Bridgetown
Bridgetown is a Ruby-based static site generator and full-stack web framework that grew out of the Jekyll ecosystem. It supports component-based design, plugins, and optional dynamic rendering for blogs and websites.
- Component-based design
- Plugin ecosystem
- Front-end bundling
- Static and hybrid rendering
Franklin
Franklin is a simple, customizable static site generator written in Julia with built-in support for live evaluation of Julia code in pages. It is well suited to technical blogs and documentation sites.
- Julia code evaluation
- Markdown extensions
- Live preview server
- Static output
Bridgetown vs Franklin: key differences
Bridgetown is written in Ruby, while Franklin is built with Julia.
Why pick each one
Choose Bridgetown if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (1.4k GitHub stars)
- Written in Ruby
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Choose Franklin if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Julia
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Bridgetown or Franklin better?
Neither is universally better. Bridgetown has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Bridgetown and Franklin free and open-source?
Yes. Bridgetown is licensed under MIT and Franklin under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Bridgetown and Franklin with Docker?
Bridgetown: check the project docs for container support. Franklin: check the project docs for container support.