Pencil vs Soupault
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pencil | Soupault |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 62 · Good | 64 · Good |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Haskell | OCaml |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5 | ★ 430 |
| First released | 2017 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Jekyll | Jekyll, Hugo |
What are Pencil and Soupault?
Pencil
Pencil is a static site generator library and tool written in Haskell that compiles Markdown and templates into a static website. It gives developers a programmatic way to define site structure and content transformations.
- Haskell library API
- Markdown rendering
- Template inheritance
- Static output
Soupault
Soupault is a static website generator and HTML processor that manipulates the page DOM directly rather than relying on a templating language. It can build new sites or post-process existing static sites.
- DOM-based processing
- Lua plugin support
- Single-binary tool
- Works on existing sites
Pencil vs Soupault: key differences
Pencil is written in Haskell, while Soupault is built with OCaml. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Pencil versus MIT for Soupault. Pencil is the more established project (first released 2017), while Soupault arrived in 2019. Soupault has the considerably larger community, at 430 GitHub stars versus 5.
Why pick each one
Choose Pencil if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Written in Haskell
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Choose Soupault if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Written in OCaml
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Pencil or Soupault better?
Soupault is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler medium setup. Consider Pencil if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Pencil and Soupault free and open-source?
Yes. Pencil is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Soupault under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pencil and Soupault with Docker?
Pencil: check the project docs for container support. Soupault: check the project docs for container support.