When comparing Middleman vs Grav, the Slant community recommends Middleman for most people. In the question“What are the best static site generators?” Middleman is ranked 7th while Grav is ranked 17th. The most important reason people chose Middleman is:
[Minification and compression](http://middlemanapp.com/advanced/file-size-optimization/index.html) are as easy as setting a few configuration options, and [unique asset hashes](http://middlemanapp.com/advanced/improving-cacheability/) are available to allow you to invalidate the cache of files that change regularly.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Built in minification, compression, and cache busting
Minification and compression are as easy as setting a few configuration options, and unique asset hashes are available to allow you to invalidate the cache of files that change regularly.
Pro Support for a variety of templating languages and preprocessors
Middleman supports lots of compiled languages, such as Less, Markdown, Textile, CoffeeScript, Stylus and more.
Pro Extensible and flexible
Middleman has a resources page full of official and community extensions.
Pro External pipeline management with Webpack
Replace your Gulp, Grunt, Bower configs
Pro Embraces Rails conventions
Middleman follows established conventions so if you know rails, you can easily pick up middleman.
Pro Easy deployment options
Pro Can be hosted with any provider
Since Grav is built with PHP, it can be hosted on almost all web hosting providers. If the provider supports Wordpress, they also support Grav.
Pro Easy creation of templates and content
Supports Twig for templating with Parsedown for fast Markdown and Markdown Extra support.
Pro Easy to use admin panel
Well designed, easily usable and modern admin panel is a boost as it lets Clients edit the content easily.
Pro Custom fields for content
YAML-based page headers allow you easily add custom dynamic fields to your content.
Pro Open-source and free
Pro Extensive Documentation
Documentation is not an afterthought! Grav has a dedicated documentation site plus loads of tutorials and guides.
Pro Extensive documentation
Documentation is not an afterthought. Grav has a dedicated documentation site plus loads of tutorials and guides.
Pro Built-in package manager
Pro CLI Tools
Command line tools such as dependency installation, cache clearing, user creation, and backups.
Cons
Con Too much magic happens
For new users it is hard to understand what is going on and why.
Con A little more complicated than other static site generators
Middleman is a big piece of software, it's not simply a static blog generator. Because of all the functionality and flexibility it offers it can be a little more complex than other static site generators and a little harder to learn all of its bells and whistles.