Franklin vs Publican
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Franklin | Publican |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 58 · Fair |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Julia | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 20 |
| First released | 2019 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Franklin and Publican?
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
Publican
Publican is a fast, dependency-light static site generator for blogs and content sites built with modern JavaScript. It renders Markdown content with flexible templating and incremental builds for quick publishing.
- Markdown content
- Flexible templating
- Incremental builds
- Minimal dependencies
Franklin vs Publican: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while Publican is built with JavaScript. Publican is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Franklin. Franklin is the more established project (first released 2019), while Publican arrived in 2024. Franklin has the considerably larger community, at 1,069 GitHub stars versus 20.
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 Publican if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in JavaScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Watch out for
- Young project
- Small theme selection
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or Publican better?
Neither is universally better. Franklin has the larger community, while Publican is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Franklin and Publican free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and Publican under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and Publican with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. Publican: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Franklin or Publican?
Publican has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Franklin. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.