Frameworks

In some cases, you can use web frameworks with these static generators.

There are plenty of themes for the three major ones in this selection. You can see from the selection on their listings that they have embraced known technologies. The most likely choice is Bootstrap, which dominates in the space. If you want to use other frameworks, there are many but you will need to put in a lot of work making your own theme that uses it.

This may be less of an issue than it seems at first. The format for a theme is very similar to any other. You can use this to transfer a theme that you like from one to the other. It is more complex than regular use, but far from a serious programming or web design challenge.

The themes are all supported by a web framework – the earliest of these were Jinja, now Jinja2. Looking through the way it works, there are only details in implementation that differ between them. Any decent computer-savvy person can figure it out rather quickly, all thanks to the adherence to standards.

The existing themes for Hugo, Jekyll and Pelican have many that are based on Bootstrap. You can usually find themes using the many other frontend frameworks if you really want to.

MkPage and staticsite do not have enough supporters to have an impressive collection of themes. You can still use Bootstrap and alternatives, but again it takes some work. If you are a creative person who wants to spend your time tweaking the look, please do. It will benefit everyone and you will get street cred!

Do remember that this is an undertaking – it’s not something you can whip up in an afternoon. With that in mind, make your path clear and use ready themes to finish a website and create new themes otherwise.