Franklin vs Soupault
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Franklin | Soupault |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 64 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Julia | OCaml |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 430 |
| First released | 2019 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Franklin and Soupault?
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
Soupault
Soupault is a static website generator and HTML processor that manipulates the page DOM directly rather than relying on a templating language. It can build new sites or post-process existing static sites.
- DOM-based processing
- Lua plugin support
- Single-binary tool
- Works on existing sites
Franklin vs Soupault: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while Soupault is built with OCaml. Soupault is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Franklin. Franklin has the considerably larger community, at 1,069 GitHub stars versus 430.
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 Soupault if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in OCaml
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or Soupault better?
Neither is universally better. Franklin has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Franklin and Soupault free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and Soupault under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and Soupault with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. Soupault: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Franklin or Soupault?
Soupault 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.