When comparing Substance vs Nikola, the Slant community recommends Nikola for most people. In the question“What are the best solutions for a personal blog?” Nikola is ranked 11th while Substance is ranked 24th. 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
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free for one site
One site is free, for other option see pricing.
Pro Easy importing of Jekyll posts
An easy to use interface for migrating from Jekyll is available.
Pro Clean and simple layouts
Substance doesn't clutter your blog, it gets out of the way so people can focus on reading.
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.