Lume vs Publican
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Lume | Publican |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 58 · Fair |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,284 | ★ 20 |
| First released | 2021 | 2024 |
| Replaces | Jekyll, Hugo | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Lume and Publican?
Lume
Lume is a fast and flexible static site generator for the Deno runtime that supports many template engines and file formats out of the box. It is used to build blogs, documentation, and websites with minimal configuration.
- Built on Deno
- Many template engines
- Plugin system
- Fast static builds
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
Lume vs Publican: key differences
Lume is written in TypeScript, while Publican is built with JavaScript. Lume is the more established project (first released 2021), while Publican arrived in 2024. Lume has the considerably larger community, at 2,284 GitHub stars versus 20.
Why pick each one
Choose Lume if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (2.3k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
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
Frequently asked questions
Is Lume or Publican better?
Neither is universally better. Lume has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Lume and Publican free and open-source?
Yes. Lume is licensed under MIT and Publican under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Lume and Publican with Docker?
Lume: check the project docs for container support. Publican: check the project docs for container support.