Assemble vs Cecil
Assemble
assemble.ioCecil
cecil.appSide by side
| Figure | Assemble | Cecil |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Static site generators | 7.8 (#17) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Content sources | markdown | markdown |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Incremental builds | No | Yes |
| Installation | The instructions install Assemble with npm as a project development dependency or globally for command line use. | Cecil can be downloaded as a PHAR file and installed globally through Homebrew on macOS, Scoop on Windows, PHIVE, or a manual Linux command. |
| License | The maker’s Grunt Assemble repository says it is released under the MIT license. | Cecil is free software distributed under the EUPL-1.2 license. |
| Multilingual support | No | Yes |
| Local preview server | No | Yes |
| Product | Assemble is a static site generator for Grunt.js, Yeoman and Node.js. | Cecil is a command-line PHP application that combines Markdown pages, media, and Twig templates to generate static websites. |
| Supported languages | JavaScript,Node.js | PHP |
| Templates | Assemble supports templates rendered with multiple engines, including Nunjucks, Handlebars and Lodash. | Cecil uses the Twig template engine and supports themes. |
| What it does | The project describes Assemble as a command line tool and developer framework for rapid prototyping and static site generation. | Cecil is a PHP command-line static site generator that combines Markdown pages, media, and Twig templates to generate static websites. |
Plans
In their own words
Cecil
Cecil is a free command-line PHP application that generates static websites from Markdown pages, media, and Twig templates. It stores content in Markdown files with front matter and supports themes for changing site design. The generator can create pagination, sitemaps, redirects, robots.txt, taxonomies, RSS, and SEO metadata such as Open Graph tags, Twitter cards, and structured data. It can also produce responsive WebP and AVIF images and compress them. Multilingual content and template translation are supported, as is a local preview server. Cecil generates static HTML; its maker says site visits do not require a database or server-side script execution. Installation is documented for macOS, Windows, and Linux, but PHP 8.2 or later is required. Deployment recipes cover services including Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, and GitLab Pages. The project is distributed under the EUPL-1.2 license and maintained by Arnaud Ligny. Cecil is free software at free, with no cost or usage limits stated.