Bridgetown vs Soupault
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Bridgetown | Soupault |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 84 · Excellent | 64 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Ruby | OCaml |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,366 | ★ 430 |
| First released | 2020 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, WordPress | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Bridgetown and Soupault?
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
Soupault
Soupault is a static website generator and HTML processor that manipulates the page DOM directly rather than relying on a templating language. It can build new sites or post-process existing static sites.
- DOM-based processing
- Lua plugin support
- Single-binary tool
- Works on existing sites
Bridgetown vs Soupault: key differences
Bridgetown is written in Ruby, while Soupault is built with OCaml. Soupault is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Bridgetown. Bridgetown has the considerably larger community, at 1,366 GitHub stars versus 430.
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 Soupault if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in OCaml
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Bridgetown or Soupault 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 Soupault free and open-source?
Yes. Bridgetown is licensed under MIT and Soupault under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Bridgetown and Soupault with Docker?
Bridgetown: check the project docs for container support. Soupault: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Bridgetown or Soupault?
Soupault has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Bridgetown. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.