Franklin vs Middleman
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Franklin | Middleman |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 89 · Excellent |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Julia | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 7,111 |
| First released | 2019 | 2009 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, WordPress |
What are Franklin and Middleman?
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
Middleman
Middleman is a static site generator using all the shortcuts and tools in modern web development, including templating, asset pipelines, and helpers. Its blogging extension turns it into a full static blog engine.
- Asset pipeline
- Blogging extension
- Helpers and partials
- Static output
Franklin vs Middleman: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while Middleman is built with Ruby. Middleman is the more established project (first released 2009), while Franklin arrived in 2019. Middleman has the considerably larger community, at 7,111 GitHub stars versus 1,069.
Why pick each one
Choose Franklin if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (1.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in Julia
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Choose Middleman if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Mature project with 7.1k GitHub stars
- Written in Ruby
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or Middleman better?
Neither is universally better. Middleman has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Franklin and Middleman free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and Middleman under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and Middleman with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. Middleman: check the project docs for container support.