Hugo is one of the most popular open-source static site generators. It’s written in Go and known for its amazing speed and flexibility. In this post, I’ll share my experience getting started with Hugo and why I chose it for my blog.
Why Choose a Static Site Generator?
Static site generators offer several advantages over traditional content management systems:
- Speed: Static sites are incredibly fast since they don’t require server-side processing or database queries.
- Security: With no database or server-side scripts, there are fewer vulnerabilities to exploit.
- Simplicity: The build process is straightforward, and the resulting site is just HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Version Control: All content can be stored in a Git repository, making it easy to track changes and collaborate.
- Hosting Options: Static sites can be hosted almost anywhere, often for free (GitHub Pages, Netlify, Vercel, etc.).
Getting Started with Hugo
Installation
Installing Hugo is straightforward. On macOS, you can use Homebrew:
brew install hugo
For other operating systems, check the official installation guide.
Creating a New Site
Once Hugo is installed, you can create a new site with:
hugo new site mysite
This creates a new directory with the basic structure for your Hugo site.
Choosing a Theme
Hugo has a wide variety of themes available. You can browse them at themes.gohugo.io. For this blog, I chose the Clean White theme because of its clean design and readability.
To add a theme, you can use Git submodules:
cd mysite
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/themename/hugo-theme-name.git themes/hugo-theme-name
Then, update your hugo.toml (or config.toml) to use the theme:
theme = "hugo-theme-name"
Creating Content
Hugo makes it easy to create new content. For example, to create a new blog post:
hugo new post/my-first-post.md
This creates a new Markdown file with front matter (metadata) already set up.
Building and Previewing Your Site
To preview your site locally:
hugo server -D
This starts a local server with live reloading. The -D flag includes draft content.
To build your site for production:
hugo
This generates your static site in the public directory, ready to be deployed.
Conclusion
Hugo is a powerful and flexible static site generator that makes it easy to create fast, secure websites. Whether you’re building a personal blog, a documentation site, or a portfolio, Hugo provides the tools you need to succeed.
In future posts, I’ll dive deeper into Hugo’s features and share tips for customizing your site. Stay tuned!
Have you used Hugo or other static site generators? Share your experiences in the comments below.
