When comparing Cactus vs JBake, the Slant community recommends JBake for most people. In the question“What are the best static site generators?” JBake is ranked 26th while Cactus is ranked 34th. The most important reason people chose JBake is:
Localhost server is included and can be used to preview content during editing process.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Many out-of-box plugins
Pro Easy to install and customize
Pro Simple
Pro Server included
Localhost server is included and can be used to preview content during editing process.
Pro Blog Aware
RSS feed, archive and tag support. Posts/Topics are a first-class citizen in jbake.
Pro Runs on / Control from the JVM
The site generator is just a specific usage of the JBake Java API. As such, jbake is easily integrated into other JVM software.
Pro Typical inputs
Markdown, asciidoc, plain HTML is supported
Pro Open Source (MIT License)
boosts permissive MIT License.
Cons
Con SCSS build time
Slow build time and live reload when using scss framework. ie. Foundation, burbon, ect...
Con Runs on the JVM
JVM is a double-edged sword (startup time, memory usage, CPU overhead, ...) which might be considered overkill for a static site generator.