When comparing Assemble vs Sitegen, the Slant community recommends Assemble for most people. In the question“What are the best static site generators?” Assemble is ranked 15th while Sitegen is ranked 32nd.
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Pros
Pro No dependencies on Ruby, Python... just JavaScript
Pro Built on node.js
Pro Powered by a popular template engine Handlebars
Handlebars is the default template engine for Assemble, but you can add any template any you want.
Pro Highly customizable
Pro Markdown support
Pro Highly extensible
Assemble can be extended with plugins/middleware, helpers and mixins.
Pro Nested layout support
Assemble makes it easy to work with layouts. Layouts are used to "wrap" pages with common page elements, such as a header, footer etc. You can even nest layouts!
Pro Use mainstream build tools Grunt or Gulp
Pro Easy configuration
You configure the site with a site.moon file. It is written in MoonScript.
Pro Powerful templating
It uses the cosmo templating language. It enables you to inject stuff into the page as it is being generated.
Pro Extendable through plugins
It has a plugin system. It comes bundled with some plugins already, like syntax highlighting. You can write your own plugins.
Pro HTML and Markdown
Pages and templates can be written in HTML or Markdown
Pro Easy
It's pretty easy to get started with.
Cons
Con Documentation can be hard to navigate
Especially for someone new to Assemble, it can be difficult to find what you're looking for in the documentation.