Hugo vs Scully
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Hugo
Blazing fast static site generator for blogs and sites
VS
Scully
Static site generator for Angular applications
| Feature | Hugo | Scully |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 100 · Excellent | 18 · At risk |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 89,914 | ★ 2,527 |
| First released | 2013 | 2019 |
| Replaces | WordPress, Medium | Gatsby, WordPress |
What are Hugo and Scully?
Hugo
Hugo is one of the fastest open-source static site generators, written in Go. It builds blogs, documentation, and websites from Markdown content with thousands of available themes.
- Extremely fast builds
- Markdown content
- Huge theme library
- Single binary install
Scully
Scully is a static site generator designed for Angular projects that prerenders pages into static HTML for better performance and SEO. It adds blogging capabilities to Angular apps through its plugin system.
- Angular prerendering
- Static HTML output
- Blog plugin
- Improved SEO
Hugo vs Scully: key differences
Hugo is written in Go, while Scully is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — Apache-2.0 for Hugo versus MIT for Scully. Hugo is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Scully. Hugo is the more established project (first released 2013), while Scully arrived in 2019. Hugo has the considerably larger community, at 89,914 GitHub stars versus 2,527.
Why pick each one
Choose Hugo if…
- Outstanding build speed
- No server-side runtime needed
Watch out for
- Templating has a learning curve
- No built-in admin UI
Choose Scully if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (2.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Hugo or Scully better?
Neither is universally better. Hugo has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Hugo and Scully free and open-source?
Yes. Hugo is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Scully under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Hugo and Scully with Docker?
Hugo: check the project docs for container support. Scully: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Hugo or Scully?
Hugo has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Scully. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.