Cobalt vs Saaze
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
Saaze
Minimal flat-file CMS and static site generator in PHP
| Feature | Cobalt | Saaze |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 81 · Excellent | 0 · At risk |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Rust | Blade |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,538 | ★ 52 |
| First released | 2015 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, WordPress |
What are Cobalt and Saaze?
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
Saaze
Saaze is a lightweight flat-file CMS and static site generator built with PHP. It can serve content dynamically or export a fully static site, using YAML and Markdown files for content.
- Dynamic or static site modes
- Flat-file content storage
- Blade templating engine
- Markdown and YAML content
Cobalt vs Saaze: key differences
Cobalt is written in Rust, while Saaze is built with Blade. Cobalt is the more established project (first released 2015), while Saaze arrived in 2021. Cobalt has the considerably larger community, at 1,538 GitHub stars versus 52.
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 Saaze if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Blade
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Cobalt or Saaze better?
Neither is universally better. Cobalt has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Cobalt and Saaze free and open-source?
Yes. Cobalt is licensed under MIT and Saaze under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Cobalt and Saaze with Docker?
Cobalt: check the project docs for container support. Saaze: check the project docs for container support.