Cecil vs Harp
Cecil
cecil.appHarp
harp.shSide by side
| Figure | Cecil | Harp |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Static site generators | 8.8 (#3) | 7.8 (#16) |
| Content sources | markdown | markdown |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Local preview server | Yes | Yes |
| Product | Cecil is a command-line PHP application that combines Markdown pages, media, and Twig templates to generate static websites. | Harp describes itself as a static web server with built-in preprocessing. |
| Supported languages | PHP | Node.js,JavaScript,CoffeeScript |
| Templates | Cecil uses the Twig template engine and supports themes. | Harp supports layouts and reusable partials for Jade and EJS. |
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.