Static Site Generators

Notes on choosing an SSG to publish from Markdown / Obsidian (and possibly Emacs org-mode).

This KB

This site runs on Quartz — chosen for native Obsidian support (backlinks, graph, wikilinks).

Options

Best for a polished personal/professional site.

Strengths: modern TypeScript-friendly stack; great for custom pages, components, portfolios; excellent DX; strong community momentum.
Weaknesses: not Obsidian-native; org-mode needs a conversion workflow.
Use when: the site is mainly your personal brand, portfolio, blog, and technical writing.

Best for durable, boring, long-term publishing.

Strengths: very mature; extremely fast builds; minimal dependency churn; supports Markdown and org-mode; great for long-lived publishing.
Weaknesses: less modern-feeling; templating/content model feels older.
Use when: you want a reliable engine for Markdown/org-mode content.

Best for an Obsidian-native digital garden.

Strengths: built around Obsidian-style notes; backlinks, graph view, wikilinks, search, popovers, LaTeX, syntax highlighting; ideal for public knowledge gardens.
Weaknesses: specialized; less ideal for complex custom personal sites.
Use when: the site is mainly your public Obsidian vault / second brain.

Professional dev site + blog        → Astro
Public Obsidian / digital garden    → Quartz
Durable Markdown/org-mode publisher → Hugo