Researcher in Computational Trust, Privacy, Security and Artificial Intelligence Zola 2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00 https://www.magcamit.com/tags/static-site-generator/atom.xml 2026-04-18T00:00:00+00:00 2026-05-25T00:00:00+00:00 Michael Intal Magcamit https://www.magcamit.com/musings/bye-hugo-hello-zola/ <p>As of April 2026, I have updated my website after having waited for years for a better alternative to what I had been using. Here are my thoughts on the transition.</p> <h2 id="what-happened-and-why">What happened and why?<a class="post-anchor" href="#what-happened-and-why" aria-label="Anchor link for: what-happened-and-why"><span aria-hidden="true">#</span></a> </h2> <p>I have been using <a rel="external" href="https://gohugo.io/">Hugo</a> as the static site generator (SSG) for my website since late 2018. I had started with the Hugo Academic theme, which was later renamed Wowchemy and eventually to <a rel="external" href="https://hugoblox.com/">HugoBlox</a>. Initially, the Hugo Academic theme was great but with the theme's evolution, every major update to the theme as well as Hugo, itself, brought about breaking changes.</p> <p>In April 2026, I found out about <a rel="external" href="https://www.getzola.org/">Zola</a>, a static site generator written in Rust, and decided to switch to it. I quote the creator of Zola, <a rel="external" href="https://www.vincentprouillet.com/">Vincent Prouillet</a>, below, which somewhat resonates with my frustrations with Hugo and HugoBlox.</p> <blockquote> <p>This tool and its template engine tera were born from an intense dislike of the (insane) Golang template engine and therefore of Hugo that I was using before for 6+ sites.</p> <p>— <cite>Zola GitHub repository<sup class="footnote-reference" id="fr-1-1"><a href="#fn-1">1</a></sup></cite></p> </blockquote> <h2 id="zola-and-the-terminus-theme">Zola and the <code>terminus</code> theme<a class="post-anchor" href="#zola-and-the-terminus-theme" aria-label="Anchor link for: zola-and-the-terminus-theme"><span aria-hidden="true">#</span></a> </h2> <p>Given how frustrating my experience with Hugo had turned out to be, I decided to give Zola a try. However, Zola's theme ecosystem is not as mature as Hugo's yet and I could not find a theme that quite replicates the look and feel of the academic profile theme of Hugo. Hence, I ventured into a different direction -- using the <a rel="external" href="https://github.com/ebkalderon/terminus"><code>terminus</code></a> theme for a minimalistic and clean look. I have <a rel="external" href="https://github.com/ebkalderon/terminus/pull/17">customised the theme</a>, thanks <a rel="external" href="https://github.com/ebkalderon">Eyal Kalderon</a> for the theme and for accepting my customisations.</p> <h2 id="the-future">The future<a class="post-anchor" href="#the-future" aria-label="Anchor link for: the-future"><span aria-hidden="true">#</span></a> </h2> <p>So far, so good but it is too early to tell how Zola and its themes evolve over time. A month on, and still no unpleasant surprises. Let's see how it unfolds.</p> <section class="footnotes"> <ol class="footnotes-list"> <li id="fn-1"> <p><a rel="external" href="https://github.com/getzola/zola">Zola GitHub repository</a>, accessed on April 19, 2026. <a href="#fr-1-1">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </section>