Pencil vs Wintersmith
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Pencil | Wintersmith |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 62 · Good | 19 · At risk |
| Category | Blogging Platforms | Blogging Platforms |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Haskell | CoffeeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | source, binary | source, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5 | ★ 3,478 |
| First released | 2017 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Jekyll | WordPress, Jekyll |
What are Pencil and Wintersmith?
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
Wintersmith
Wintersmith is a simple yet flexible static site generator built on Node.js that turns Markdown content into a static website or blog. Its plugin system allows custom content types and generators.
- Plugin-driven generators
- Markdown content
- Jade and Pug templates
- Static output
Pencil vs Wintersmith: key differences
Pencil is written in Haskell, while Wintersmith is built with CoffeeScript. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for Pencil versus MIT for Wintersmith. Pencil is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for Wintersmith. Wintersmith is the more established project (first released 2012), while Pencil arrived in 2017. Wintersmith has the considerably larger community, at 3,478 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 Wintersmith if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3.5k GitHub stars)
- Written in CoffeeScript
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Pencil or Wintersmith better?
Wintersmith 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 Wintersmith free and open-source?
Yes. Pencil is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and Wintersmith under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Pencil and Wintersmith with Docker?
Pencil: check the project docs for container support. Wintersmith: check the project docs for container support.
Which is lighter on resources, Pencil or Wintersmith?
Pencil has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for Wintersmith. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.