Cobalt vs Pencil
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
Pencil
Static site generator library built in Haskell
| Feature | Cobalt | Pencil |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 62 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Rust | Haskell |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,538 | ★ 5 |
| First released | 2015 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll |
What are Cobalt and Pencil?
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
Pencil
Pencil is a static site generator library and tool written in Haskell that compiles Markdown and templates into a static website. It gives developers a programmatic way to define site structure and content transformations.
- Haskell library API
- Markdown rendering
- Template inheritance
- Static output
Cobalt vs Pencil: key differences
Cobalt is written in Rust, while Pencil is built with Haskell. Licensing differs — MIT for Cobalt versus BSD-3-Clause for Pencil. Cobalt is the more established project (first released 2015), while Pencil arrived in 2017. Cobalt has the considerably larger community, at 1,538 GitHub stars versus 5.
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 Pencil if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in Haskell
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Cobalt or Pencil better?
Cobalt is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Pencil if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Cobalt and Pencil free and open-source?
Yes. Cobalt is licensed under MIT and Pencil under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cobalt and Pencil with Docker?
Cobalt: check the project docs for container support. Pencil: check the project docs for container support.