Cobalt vs Metalsmith
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Cobalt
Static site generator written in Rust
VS
Metalsmith
Extremely simple pluggable static site generator
| Feature | Cobalt | Metalsmith |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 68 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Rust | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,538 | ★ 7,822 |
| First released | 2015 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | WordPress, Jekyll |
What are Cobalt and Metalsmith?
Cobalt
Cobalt is a static site generator written in Rust that builds blogs and websites from Markdown and Liquid templates. It produces fast, self-contained static output and ships as a single binary.
- Single-binary tool
- Liquid templating
- Markdown content
- Fast builds
Metalsmith
Metalsmith is a static site generator that treats every site as a series of plugins manipulating files, making it suitable for blogs, project pages, and documentation. All functionality, including Markdown rendering and templating, is provided by plugins.
- Everything is a plugin
- Pipeline architecture
- Markdown and templating plugins
- Static output
Cobalt vs Metalsmith: key differences
Cobalt is written in Rust, while Metalsmith is built with JavaScript. Cobalt is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Metalsmith. Metalsmith has the considerably larger community, at 7,822 GitHub stars versus 1,538.
Why pick each one
Choose Cobalt if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (1.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in Rust
Choose Metalsmith if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 7.8k GitHub stars
- Written in JavaScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Cobalt or Metalsmith better?
Neither is universally better. Metalsmith has the larger community, while Cobalt is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Cobalt and Metalsmith free and open-source?
Yes. Cobalt is licensed under MIT and Metalsmith under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cobalt and Metalsmith with Docker?
Cobalt: check the project docs for container support. Metalsmith: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Cobalt or Metalsmith?
Cobalt has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Metalsmith. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.