Pelican vs Scully
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pelican | Scully |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 80 · Excellent | 18 · At risk |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Python | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 13,339 | ★ 2,527 |
| First released | 2010 | 2019 |
| Replaces | WordPress, Blogger | Gatsby, WordPress |
What are Pelican and Scully?
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
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
Pelican vs Scully: key differences
Pelican is written in Python, while Scully is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Pelican versus MIT for Scully. Pelican is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Scully. Pelican is the more established project (first released 2010), while Scully arrived in 2019. Pelican has the considerably larger community, at 13,339 GitHub stars versus 2,527.
Why pick each one
Choose Pelican if…
- Great for Python users
- Mature and stable
Watch out for
- No admin UI
- Python environment needed
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 Pelican or Scully 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 Pelican and Scully free and open-source?
Yes. Pelican is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Scully under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pelican and Scully with Docker?
Pelican: check the project docs for container support. Scully: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Pelican or Scully?
Pelican has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Scully. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.