head to head · open source
jekyll vs wordpress-static-site-exporter
jekyll has 51,778 GitHub stars, 10,303 forks, 258 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. wordpress-static-site-exporter has 1,082 stars, 130 forks, 2 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jekyll leads on adoption by 4,685% (51,778 vs 1,082 stars). jekyll is written in Ruby under MIT; wordpress-static-site-exporter is written in PHP under GPL-3.0. jekyll has attracted 20% as many forks as stars, wordpress-static-site-exporter 12%. wordpress-static-site-exporter was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (jekyll, markdown, 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| jekyll | wordpress-static-site-exporter | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 52K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-13 | 2026-11-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 130 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jekyll if
- You weight community size — 52K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick wordpress-static-site-exporter if
- You want the wordpress-static-site-exporter feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and wordpress-static-site-exporter fits your workflow better
About jekyll
Jekyll [ ][ruby gems] [ ][ci workflow] [ruby gems]: [ci workflow]: [appveyor]: Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator perfect for personal, project, or organization sites. Think of it like a file based CMS, without all the complexity. Jekyll takes your content, renders Markdown and Liquid templates, and spits out a complete, static website ready to be served by Apache, Nginx or another web server. Jekyll is the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host sites right from your GitHub repositories. Philosophy Jekyll does what you tell it to do — no more, no less. It doesn't try to outsmart…
read the full jekyll overview →
About wordpress-static-site-exporter
Static Site Exporter: WordPress to Jekyll and Hugo Markdown exporter One click WordPress plugin that converts all posts, pages, taxonomies, metadata, and settings to Markdown and YAML which can be dropped into Jekyll (or Hugo or any other Markdown and YAML based site engine). View plugin in the WordPress plugin directory. Features Converts all posts, pages, and settings from WordPress to Markdown and YAML for use in Jekyll (or Hugo or any other Markdown and YAML based site engine) Export what your users see, not what the database stores (runs post content through the content filter prior to export, allowing…
read the full wordpress-static-site-exporter overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Blogging & Personal Sites projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Blogging & Personal Sites field.
Frequently asked questions
Is jekyll or wordpress-static-site-exporter more popular?
jekyll has 51,778 GitHub stars and wordpress-static-site-exporter has 1,082. jekyll has the larger community by that measure.
Are jekyll and wordpress-static-site-exporter free?
Both are open source. jekyll is licensed under MIT and wordpress-static-site-exporter under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jekyll and wordpress-static-site-exporter?
jekyll is written in Ruby and wordpress-static-site-exporter in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, jekyll or wordpress-static-site-exporter?
Choose jekyll if you want the larger community (51,778 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose wordpress-static-site-exporter if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.