I switched to Jekyll from WordPress for this blog and my website. Why?
I was mainly seeking simplicity in blogging. When using WordPress, I have to manage its running, updates, etc, and most of them were not necessary as my sites were not using much features of WordPress other than publishing of posts.
Jekyll has several advantages. Below are some of them that are attractive for using it.
Advantages
No Programming Language
It does not require any specific programming language support to write and publish posts. Yes, Jekyll itself is written in Ruby, but it does not require us to know Ruby to use it.
Markdown Writing
Posts can be written in markdown format. It helps to bring more control over the final markup that are published as posts. Unintended HTML tags are not added by Jekyll. We can use HTML tags as we require.
Static Site, Security & Updates
Jekyll generates a static site, containing just HTML, CSS and JavaScript files. It can be hosted on any simple web server without any scripting or programming language support. Static site hosting is much cheaper when compared to hosting that have programming language support. Static sites will perform much better than sites that use programming language to generate its content dynamically.
Also, as it is static site, it has added security. Crackers cannot hack into the site utilizing the security holes in the framework used. It is having just a bunch of static files and not framework for running. As far as web server is secure the site is also secure. There is no database, so no SQL injection too.
No need to keep Jekyll up to date. We can continue with same Jekyll version as far as it is generating correct HTML for the site. We are using Jekyll to just generate the static files. Jekyll do not have any role while others access our website.
Free Hosting Available
Although I am hosting this blog and website myself. We can host our Jekyll based website on Github pages with no extra cost.
History Recorded & Backup Assured
Even it is not a must to have, most users, including me, are using a version system, usually git, to publish Jekyll site. It helps to keep history of the site. Reverting and restoring are simple jobs. We can easily track the changes made, this will be of great help in collaborative scenarios.
While using version system like git. Backup of the site is assured as we will have minimum two copy of its files, one on our local computer and another on server where we publish the site.
Disadvantages
Even Jekyll do have above listed positive sides, it may not be suitable for everyone.
To use Jekyll, we are required to have some technical knowledge. Installation and setup is not that attractive to non-techie users. We need to know git or other version system for using Jekyll. Changing theme of the blog requires playing with plain HTML files with Liquid template system tags, that is not easy as in WordPress or other blogging solutions, where easy to install themes are available.
As it is static files, it cannot accept user comments. We need to depend on other commenting system, here I use Disqus for bringing commenting feature for my sites.
Conclusion
Overall I am satisfied with Jekyll. Being a techie I don’t feel any difficulty with this move. Now I am using Jekyll without any extra plugins. Jekyll is a good solution if you are looking for simple publishing without extra dynamic features on the site.
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