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Middleman vs Pelican

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?
MI Middleman Ruby static site generator with modern tooling VS PE Pelican Static site generator for Python and Markdown lovers
FeatureMiddlemanPelican
Deploy effortRead-the-docs projectRead-the-docs project
Health score89 · Excellent80 · Excellent
CategoryBlogging PlatformsBlogging Platforms
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageRubyPython
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentsource, binarybinary, source
GitHub stars★ 7,111★ 13,339
First released20092010
ReplacesJekyll, WordPressWordPress, Blogger

What are Middleman and Pelican?

Middleman

Middleman is a static site generator using all the shortcuts and tools in modern web development, including templating, asset pipelines, and helpers. Its blogging extension turns it into a full static blog engine.

  • Asset pipeline
  • Blogging extension
  • Helpers and partials
  • Static output

Pelican

Pelican is an open-source static site generator written in Python that builds blogs from Markdown or reStructuredText. It supports themes, plugins, and import from other blogging platforms.

  • Markdown and reStructuredText
  • Theme and plugin support
  • Import from WordPress and others
  • Atom and RSS feeds

Read the full Pelican guide →

Middleman vs Pelican: key differences

Middleman is written in Ruby, while Pelican is built with Python. Licensing differs — MIT for Middleman versus AGPL-3.0 for Pelican.

Why pick each one

Choose Middleman if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Mature project with 7.1k GitHub stars
  • Written in Ruby
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Middleman details

Choose Pelican if…

  • Great for Python users
  • Mature and stable

Watch out for

  • No admin UI
  • Python environment needed
Pelican details

Frequently asked questions

Is Middleman or Pelican better?

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

Are Middleman and Pelican free and open-source?

Yes. Middleman is licensed under MIT and Pelican under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Middleman and Pelican with Docker?

Middleman: check the project docs for container support. Pelican: check the project docs for container support.

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