
Ask HN: What's a good framework for a simple, personal homepage? - dalek2point3
I&#x27;m an academic looking for a simple HTML generating web framework to make my home site. Here are the requirements:<p>1. No databases, no javascript. Just static HTML + CSS.
2. Editing page content should be as simple as changing text in markdown, I dont want to be editing HTML. Static generators is probably what I want.
3. Should look nice -- lots of templating options. Im not a designer, so dont want to spend too much time working with CSS.
4. Multi-page, not a big fan of the &quot;one page&quot; multi-link layout.
5. Responsive -- should work well on mobiles and tables.
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ernsheong
I personally use and love Middleman
[http://middlemanapp.com](http://middlemanapp.com) It is more general purpose
compared to Jekyll, which is more blog-focused.

It can be anything you want it to be. Responsiveness can be obtained by using
a CSS framework. These things are independent of the static generator
framework.

~~~
shepbook
I second Middleman. I've used it for a number of static sites.

For responsive layout, I highly recommend Gridism. It's simple and
lightweight.

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dreamdu5t
You don't need a framework! Or Jekyll! Open your text editor and create an
HTML page. You're solving a problem you don't have!

~~~
dalek2point3
I've done this plenty of times. It pains me that I have to modify the footer
on 5 different pages if something changes. I want to separate the content from
the design, but I dont want to use databases. And I want to use ready-made
templates that work well in different environments.

~~~
wikwocket
You can accomplish what you want with a good template from ThemeForest (or
anywhere else) and some Server Side Includes or a dash of PHP if you are in a
time crunch.

But if you want to edit in Markdown, a static site generator might be worth
looking into.

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sytelus
I know Jekyll would be sold here in the name of "simplicity". But you should
know that Jekyll sites are also the quickest sites getting abandoned because
it takes a lot of work to do minor update to large site. Plus you may not find
support for lot of customizations you might want to do. So I'd rather much
prefer WordPress even though it's not being sold as "blog like hackers do".
It's very usable, simple _in use_ , installs in 5 minutes, extensible unlike
anything else, tons of community support in form of plugins for everything you
might ever want to do. You can self-host or get hosted by someone and so on.
PHP jokes aside it's very likely the most usable, extensible and hackable
system out there.

~~~
archagon
"it takes a lot of work to do minor update to large site" — could you
elaborate? I'm not the OP but I've been considering switching to Jekyll for my
blog, so I'd like to know the downsides.

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anmonteiro90
Have you had a look at Github Pages[1] and Jekyll[2]?

[1] [https://pages.github.com/](https://pages.github.com/)

[2]
[http://jekyllrb.com/docs/quickstart/](http://jekyllrb.com/docs/quickstart/)

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motyar
Keep it simple check

My site+blog [http://motyar.github.io/](http://motyar.github.io/)

code

[https://github.com/motyar/motyar.github.com/](https://github.com/motyar/motyar.github.com/)

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michaelmior
You'll certainly get a lot of different opinions when it comes to static sit
generators. This site[1] may help you make up your mind.

[1] [http://www.staticgen.com/](http://www.staticgen.com/)

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stevenspasbo
Like the other two posters, I recommend Jekyll. I really like the Poole
([http://getpoole.com/](http://getpoole.com/)) theme.

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galfarragem
Get a Tumblr blog instead. This tool is underrated and much more flexible than
people think. You can even host for free with your personal domain. Just SEO
is far from perfect IMHO but probably that is not important for you.

~~~
throw_away
tumblr + ifttt are a great combo. I can post on various services like twitter,
delicious and Instagram and they're all aggregated on my tumblr feed.

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zindlerb
Why not just use standard html with a css framework like pure?

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dtournemille
Jeykll is a popular static site generator. You'll need a responsive template
to use with it, of which there are plenty to choose from.

