Bridgetown vs Gatsby
Bridgetown
bridgetownrb.com
Gatsby
gatsbyjs.comSide by side
| Figure | Bridgetown | Gatsby |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | — | $9/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 0 | 8 |
| Spec score · Static site generators | 8.0 (#12) | 9.3 (#1) |
| CMS integration | Yes | Yes |
| Content sources | markdown | api |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Incremental builds | Yes | Yes |
| Multilingual support | Yes | Yes |
| Plugins | Plugins extend Bridgetown projects through gems and configuration initialization, and users can write and publish their own plugins. | The Gatsby Plugin Library lists 3,269 results and includes plugins for CMS, CSS and UI, analytics, e-commerce, payment, authentication, and search. |
| Local preview server | Yes | Yes |
| Security | The plugins directory lists a plugin that adds a Content Security Policy in a meta tag. | Gatsby says its security program is SOC 2 Type 2 certified for Security, Availability, and Confidentiality, and that it adheres to GDPR. |
| Support | The documentation directs users who need help to Bridgetown community channels, including Discord chat. | Gatsby says anyone can open an issue and ask a question, and the project team will respond. |
| Supported languages | Ruby,JavaScript | JavaScript,Node.js |
| What it does | Bridgetown is a Ruby-powered progressive site generator that compiles content, layouts, and components into a website. | Gatsby is an open-source frontend framework for React developers building eCommerce sites, marketing sites, blogs, documentation, and other websites. |
Plans
Gatsby
- FreeFree
- Gatsby open sourceFree
- Personal$9 a month
- Pro$20 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
- FreeFree
- Personal$9 a month
- Pro$20 a month
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.
Gatsby
Gatsby is an open-source, React-based framework for building websites such as eCommerce and marketing sites, blogs, and documentation. It supports JavaScript and Node.js, and pages can be rendered with Static Site Generation, Deferred Static Generation, or Server-Side Rendering. Its GraphQL data layer gives page components a consistent way to request content, API, and service data. Gatsby also provides code-splitting, image optimization, lazy loading, and webpack. Its plugin library covers areas including CMS, styling, analytics, e-commerce, payments, authentication, and search; official integrations include hosting providers and content management systems. Gatsby 5 requires Node 18 and React 18. The open-source framework is free. A separate Free plan costs nothing and includes a 300-credit monthly limit, unlimited deploy previews, and custom domains with SSL. Personal costs $9 a month and Pro costs $20 a month; Enterprise pricing is custom. Projects pause when monthly usage limits are reached.