Franklin vs Wintersmith
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Franklin | Wintersmith |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 73 · Good | 19 · At risk |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Julia | CoffeeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,069 | ★ 3,478 |
| First released | 2019 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | WordPress, Jekyll |
What are Franklin and Wintersmith?
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
Wintersmith
Wintersmith is a simple yet flexible static site generator built on Node.js that turns Markdown content into a static website or blog. Its plugin system allows custom content types and generators.
- Plugin-driven generators
- Markdown content
- Jade and Pug templates
- Static output
Franklin vs Wintersmith: key differences
Franklin is written in Julia, while Wintersmith is built with CoffeeScript. Wintersmith is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Franklin. Wintersmith is the more established project (first released 2012), while Franklin arrived in 2019. Wintersmith has the considerably larger community, at 3,478 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 Wintersmith if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in CoffeeScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Franklin or Wintersmith better?
Neither is universally better. Wintersmith has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Franklin and Wintersmith free and open-source?
Yes. Franklin is licensed under MIT and Wintersmith under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Franklin and Wintersmith with Docker?
Franklin: check the project docs for container support. Wintersmith: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Franklin or Wintersmith?
Wintersmith 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.