When comparing Harp vs Nikola, the Slant community recommends Nikola for most people. In the question“What are the best static site generators?” Nikola is ranked 10th while Harp is ranked 29th. The most important reason people chose Nikola is:
Nikola posts may be written in a variety of formats. You can write posts in HTML, with all the expressive power of HTML and CSS, and still have the benefits of a site-wide theme and navigation structure.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Compiles assets on request
Rather than regenerate the whole site when a file changes, Harp only reloads what is necessary, keeping the compile time fast.
Pro Supports popular languages
Harp supports a large variety of languages, including Jade, CoffeeScript, Stylus and Sass. See the full list here.
Pro HTML input
Nikola posts may be written in a variety of formats. You can write posts in HTML, with all the expressive power of HTML and CSS, and still have the benefits of a site-wide theme and navigation structure.
Pro Host on any web server
Nikloa sites are static files, and thus may be hosted on any web server that allows you to upload your own files. This lets you use simple and inexpensive hosting providers and still have a reliable site.
Pro Write in reStructuredText and Markdown
You have better choices for markup than raw HTML.
Pro Free open-source software (MIT license)
Cons
Con Limited extensibility
There are no plugins available to extend the functionality or language support of Harp.