Metalsmith vs Hugo

Because metalsmith is at its core focused on transforming directories of files, it can be used for more than just static site generation, and could be used as a build tool, a documentation generator, or any use that requires file transformations.

Everything in metalsmith is a plugin, and it is designed to make it easy to write new ones.

Metalsmith uses a chaining API that's consistent and simple to use:

Metalsmith(__dirname)
  .use(markdown)
  .use(templates('handlebars'))
  .build();

Code can be viewed on GitHub.

All other SSGs expect you to have a full toolchain setup for their language. Hugo is written in Go and distributed as an executable for unix, linux, windows and mac. Just download and run.

Create your new site, run the Hugo server, edit. Lather, rinse, repeat. Hugo stays out of the way.

Allows you to see changes in real time.

Can create PDFs, eBooks, RSS-Feeds, language and market specific Websites from single content folder.

We are using Hugo as the base-framework for a full blown knowledge management system, idea-management and inhouse brainstorming tool. Hugo source-code is well structures and comes with top components out of the box, that makes every solution built on this framework incredible fast and scalable accross platforms and corporate silos! Hugo - when being used as a framework is a game-changer that puts Sharepoint, Wordpress and Co. back to the shelf.