Franklin vs VitePress
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
VitePress
Vite and Vue powered static site generator
| Feature | Franklin | VitePress |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 95 · Excellent |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Julia | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 18,346 |
| First released | 2019 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, GitBook |
What are Franklin and VitePress?
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
VitePress
VitePress is a static site generator built on Vite and Vue, designed for fast documentation sites and blogs with instant dev server startup. It outputs static HTML pages that hydrate into a Vue single-page app.
- Vite-powered dev server
- Markdown content
- Default docs theme
- Fast static builds
Franklin vs VitePress: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while VitePress is built with TypeScript. VitePress has the considerably larger community, at 18,346 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 VitePress if…
- Instant dev startup
- Clean default theme
- Vue component support
Watch out for
- Vue knowledge helps
- Docs-focused scope
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or VitePress better?
VitePress is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Franklin if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Franklin and VitePress free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and VitePress under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and VitePress with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. VitePress: check the project docs for container support.