Franklin vs Pencil
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Franklin | Pencil |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 62 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Julia | Haskell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 5 |
| First released | 2019 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll |
What are Franklin and Pencil?
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
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
Franklin vs Pencil: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while Pencil is built with Haskell. Licensing differs — MIT for Franklin versus BSD-3-Clause for Pencil. Pencil is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Franklin. Pencil is the more established project (first released 2017), while Franklin arrived in 2019. Franklin has the considerably larger community, at 1,069 GitHub stars versus 5.
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 Pencil if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in Haskell
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or Pencil better?
Franklin is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Pencil if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Franklin and Pencil free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and Pencil under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and Pencil with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. Pencil: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Franklin or Pencil?
Pencil has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Franklin. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.