SHSelfHostIndex

Harp vs Publican

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
HA Harp Static web server with built-in preprocessing VS PU Publican Lightweight JavaScript static site and blog generator
FeatureHarpPublican
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectRead-the-docs project
Health score66 · Good58 · Fair
CategoryBlogging PlatformsBlogging Platforms
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageJavaScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM128 MB128 MB
Deploymentsource, binarybinary, source
GitHub stars★ 4,995★ 20
First released20132024
ReplacesJekyllJekyll, Hugo

What are Harp and Publican?

Harp

Harp is a static web server and site generator that serves Jade, Markdown, EJS, CoffeeScript, Sass, LESS, and Stylus as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript without any configuration. It can compile a project to a deployable static site.

  • Zero-config preprocessing
  • Built-in web server
  • Compiles to static site
  • Multiple template languages

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

Harp vs Publican: key differences

Both projects are written in JavaScript. Harp is the more established project (first released 2013), while Publican arrived in 2024. Harp has the considerably larger community, at 4,995 GitHub stars versus 20.

Why pick each one

Choose Harp if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (5k GitHub stars)
  • Written in JavaScript
Harp details

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
Publican details

Frequently asked questions

Is Harp or Publican better?

Neither is universally better. Harp has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Harp and Publican free and open-source?

Yes. Harp is licensed under MIT and Publican under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Harp and Publican with Docker?

Harp: check the project docs for container support. Publican: check the project docs for container support.

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