head to head · open source
gatsby vs nanoc
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars, 10,115 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped today. nanoc has 2,158 stars, 250 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 19 days ago. gatsby leads on adoption by 2,492% (55,939 vs 2,158 stars). gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT; nanoc is written in Ruby under MIT. gatsby has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, nanoc 12%. gatsby was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (static-site-generator), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| gatsby | nanoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-08-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 250 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gatsby if
- You weight community size — 56K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick nanoc if
- You want the nanoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and nanoc fits your workflow better
About gatsby
Gatsby is a free and open source, React based framework for building websites and applications, released under the MIT license and written primarily in JavaScript. It combines the control and scalability of dynamically rendered sites with the speed of static site generation, and it sits in the JavaScript and React ecosystem as a static site generator, a compiler, and a GraphQL driven build tool. The project has been developed for roughly eleven years, carries 55,939 stars and 10,117 forks on GitHub, and currently has 450 open issues.
read the full gatsby overview →
About nanoc
Nanoc Nanoc is a flexible static site generator written in Ruby. See the Nanoc web site for more information. Contributions are greatly appreciated! Consult the guidelines for information on how you can contribute. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to Nanoc in one way or another: Abubakar Ango, Ale Muñoz, Alexander Groß, Alexander Mankuta, Andy Drop, Antar, Antonio Terceiro, Arnau Siches, Ben Armston, Bil Bas, Brian Candler, Bruno Dufour, Cédric Boutillier, Chris Burkhardt, Chris Chapman, Chris Eppstein, Christian Plessl, Colin Barrett, Colin Seymour, Croath Liu, Damien Mathieu, Damien Pollet, Dan Calla…
read the full nanoc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gatsby or nanoc more popular?
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars and nanoc has 2,158. gatsby has the larger community by that measure.
Are gatsby and nanoc free?
Both are open source. gatsby is licensed under MIT and nanoc under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gatsby and nanoc?
gatsby is written in JavaScript and nanoc in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gatsby or nanoc?
Choose gatsby if you want the larger community (55,939 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nanoc if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.