Jekyll vs october
| Tagline | Transform plain text into static websites and blogs | Laravel-based CMS with a clean plugin marketplace |
| Category | Blogging & CMS | Blogging & CMS |
| Replaces | WordPress.com, Medium, Squarespace | WordPress.com, Squarespace, Contentful |
| GitHub stars | 52k | 11k |
| Language | Ruby | PHP |
| License | MIT | ⊘ Proprietary |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Manual Docker | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 1 month ago | 10 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Jekyll
- Ruby environment setup can be tricky on Windows
- No admin UI; all content management is via files
- Slower build times for very large sites compared to Hugo or Eleventy
october
- Core product switched to a paid commercial license; the open-source v1 branch receives limited updates
- Plugin ecosystem has shrunk since the license change, with fewer actively maintained free plugins
- No official managed hosting; users must provision their own PHP/MySQL server
- Headless/API mode is less mature than dedicated headless CMSes like Contentful
Bottom line
Choose Jekyll if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Jekyll for the larger community and ecosystem. october has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.