I started using one of the fastest static site generator, Zola. Before I use Zola, I managed my blog with plain HTML and CSS files. If you had experience with some web development, you would understand how painful it is to create the blog with plain HTML. I would have to write same headers and footers for ever single file and I felt this is very stupid to do. But before I started looking for tools I use, I need to research since I lack some knowledge.

Static site and Dynamic site

After doing some research I found out that there are two types of server, dynamic site and static site. Dynamic site would change the content of it according to the user. For example if you are logged in to YouTube, you would have different looks compared to someone because the contents change according to that specific user. On the other hand, static site will not change its content, base on the user. Generally dynamic website seems to be more unstable when compared to static sites.

For example, WordPress websites will be dynamic and Hugo websites will be static.

Why Zola?

For security and performance aspects, I decided to go with static site and started looking for static site generator. I found Jekyll, Hugo, Zola and tinkered around with them for few hours. After playing around with them, Zola seems to be comfortable for me to use. It was easy for me to use. (Although the Tera template feels odd for the first several times) Now with static site generators I can write my blog in markdown file and this would make me easier to manage my website.

The documentation is wonderful and I read most it. If you are too lazy to read the docs, there is a video by bugswriter which he explains how to use it. This helped me a lot to get started with it.