Bridgetown vs Cecil
Bridgetown
bridgetownrb.com
Cecil
cecil.appSide by side
| Figure | Bridgetown | Cecil |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 0 | 1 |
| Spec score · Static site generators | 8.0 (#12) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Content sources | markdown | markdown |
| Deployment | Static output can be deployed to any server that supports HTML, CSS, and JavaScript; the site recommends Render for full-stack production setups. | The maker documents deployment recipes for platforms including Netlify, Vercel, GitHub Pages, and GitLab Pages. |
| Founded | 2020 | 2013 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Incremental builds | Yes | Yes |
| License | The Bridgetown source code is licensed under MIT. | Cecil is free software distributed under the EUPL-1.2 license. |
| Multilingual support | Yes | Yes |
| Local preview server | Yes | Yes |
| Requirements | Installation requires GCC and Make, Ruby 3.3 or newer, and Node 22.21 or newer. | PHP 8.2 or later is required. |
| Security | The plugins directory lists a plugin that adds a Content Security Policy in a meta tag. | The maker says generated static HTML has no database or server-side script execution during visits, avoiding vulnerabilities related to dynamic PHP on the final site. |
| Supported languages | Ruby,JavaScript | PHP |
| What it does | Bridgetown is a Ruby-powered progressive site generator that compiles content, layouts, and components into a website. | 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
Bridgetown
Bridgetown is a free site generator for building static sites, full-stack applications or a combination of both. It compiles Markdown, layouts and components into HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Static publishing features include permalinks, Git-based content deployment, atomic builds, data pipelines and pagination. Collections, taxonomies and content relationships organize material, which can be generated at build time or in real time and connected to a headless CMS or other web APIs. For full-stack applications, its Roda backend supports dynamic routes, server APIs and database connections such as PostgreSQL. Templates can use ERB, Serbea, Streamlined or Liquid; components support modular views, web components and Markdown inclusion. The frontend build system includes esbuild and PostCSS, and custom Ruby plugins can extend builds and content. Static output can be deployed anywhere that serves HTML, CSS and JavaScript files. Bridgetown supports Ruby and JavaScript, and its setup guides cover macOS, Fedora and Ubuntu Linux, and Windows through Windows Subsystem for Linux. Installation requires GCC and Make, Ruby 3.3 or newer, and Node 22.21 or newer.
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.