Jekyll vs Serendipity

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

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FeatureJekyllSerendipity
CategoryBlogging PlatformsBlogging Platforms
LicenseMITBSD-3-Clause
LanguageRubyPHP
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker, bare-metal, source
GitHub stars★ 51,622★ 226
First released20082003
ReplacesWordPress, BloggerWordPress, Blogger

Why pick each one

Choose Jekyll if…

  • Mature and well documented
  • Great for personal blogs
Jekyll details

Choose Serendipity if…

  • Excellent spam handling
  • Stable long-running project
Serendipity details

Frequently asked questions

Is Jekyll or Serendipity better?

Neither is universally better. Jekyll has the larger community, while Serendipity is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Jekyll and Serendipity free and open-source?

Yes. Jekyll is licensed under MIT and Serendipity under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Jekyll and Serendipity with Docker?

Jekyll: check the project docs for container support. Serendipity: yes.

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