# Zola

15 Hacker News commenters recommended Zola and 0 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 7 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People recommend Zola as a simple, fast static site generator that installs as a single binary and is easy to pick up. Updates have sometimes broken sites.

## Why people recommend it

- Easy to set up and use (3 comments): "I think they're both pretty simple to use once you wrap your mind around how they structure things" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238640)) "easy to pick up and get running in an hour or so" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50239080)) "it's easy to install and fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711915))
- Single binary, easy to install (2 comments): "Zola is good enough for basic blogging needs. I liked the part that it was a single binary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238789)) "it's easy to install and fast" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711915))
- Good enough for basic blogs (2 comments): "Zola is good enough for basic blogging needs. I liked the part that it was a single binary" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238789)) "Perfect for my little use case." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48899399))

## What people warn about

- Updates have broken sites (1 comments): "Zola updates broke my site a few times, quite apart from my patches not cleanly rebasing." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46488758))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Astro](https://hackerapproved.com/p/astro.md): 174 recommend
- [Hugo static site generator](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hugo.md): 85 recommend
- [Jekyll](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jekyll.md): 29 recommend
- [Eleventy](https://hackerapproved.com/p/eleventy.md): 22 recommend
- [Zensical](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zensical.md): 17 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Zola", https://hackerapproved.com/p/zola/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).