I've used several SSGs including Jekyll, Metalsmith, and Eleventy. Why build another? The main reason: personal preference. All SSGs have features that I need, features I don't need, and features they don't support. Publican implements just enough with flexibility to extend it using JavaScript.

Publican templates use JavaScript literal ${ expressions } so there's no weird syntax to learn. You can also use !{ expressions } to output partially-built pages for runtime use in Express.js or elsewhere. Features include:

- process any content: markdown, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, TXT, SVG, RSS, XML, etc.

- simple JavaScript configuration

- clean URL routing

- automated navigation, pagination, directory, and tag index pages

- built-in syntax highlighting

- virtual content and templates (passed as strings)

- extendable function hooks

- use whatever client-side framework you like (or none!)

- fast site build and file watch rebuild

- full documentation at https://publican.dev/docs/

- starter themes at https://publican.dev/themes/

You can install Publican using npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/publican

The code is available at: https://github.com/craigbuckler/publican

Also available for Publican:

- https://publican.dev/livelocalhost/ - a hot-reloading development server

- https://publican.dev/staticsearch/ - a search engine for any static site

All feedback is appreciated!