Haunt vs Pencil
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Haunt | Pencil |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | GPL-3.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | Scheme | Haskell |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 400 | ★ 5 |
| First released | 2015 | 2017 |
| Replaces | Jekyll | Jekyll |
What are Haunt and Pencil?
Haunt
Haunt is a hackable static site generator for blogs and websites, written in and configured with Guile Scheme. It treats site building as a functional pipeline, giving programmers fine-grained control over output.
- Functional build pipeline
- Scheme configuration
- Atom feed support
- Asset processing
Pencil
Pencil is a static site generator library and tool written in Haskell that compiles Markdown and templates into a static website. It gives developers a programmatic way to define site structure and content transformations.
- Haskell library API
- Markdown rendering
- Template inheritance
- Static output
Haunt vs Pencil: key differences
Haunt is written in Scheme, while Pencil is built with Haskell. Licensing differs — GPL-3.0 for Haunt versus BSD-3-Clause for Pencil. Pencil is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Haunt. Haunt is the more established project (first released 2015), while Pencil arrived in 2017. Haunt has the considerably larger community, at 400 GitHub stars versus 5.
Why pick each one
Choose Haunt if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Written in Scheme
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Watch out for
- Niche language
- Steep for non-Lispers
Choose Pencil if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in Haskell
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Haunt or Pencil better?
Haunt is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Pencil if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Haunt and Pencil free and open-source?
Yes. Haunt is licensed under GPL-3.0 and Pencil under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Haunt and Pencil with Docker?
Haunt: check the project docs for container support. Pencil: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Haunt or Pencil?
Pencil has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Haunt. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.