I'm an academic looking for a simple HTML generating web framework to make my home site. Here are the requirements:<p>1. No databases, no javascript. Just static HTML + CSS.
2. Editing page content should be as simple as changing text in markdown, I dont want to be editing HTML. Static generators is probably what I want.
3. Should look nice -- lots of templating options. Im not a designer, so dont want to spend too much time working with CSS.
4. Multi-page, not a big fan of the "one page" multi-link layout.
5. Responsive -- should work well on mobiles and tables.
I personally use and love Middleman <a href="http://middlemanapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://middlemanapp.com</a>
It is more general purpose compared to Jekyll, which is more blog-focused.<p>It can be anything you want it to be. Responsiveness can be obtained by using a CSS framework. These things are independent of the static generator framework.
I know Jekyll would be sold here in the name of "simplicity". But you should know that Jekyll sites are also the quickest sites getting abandoned because it takes a lot of work to do minor update to large site. Plus you may not find support for lot of customizations you might want to do. So I'd rather much prefer WordPress even though it's not being sold as "blog like hackers do". It's very usable, simple <i>in use</i>, installs in 5 minutes, extensible unlike anything else, tons of community support in form of plugins for everything you might ever want to do. You can self-host or get hosted by someone and so on. PHP jokes aside it's very likely the most usable, extensible and hackable system out there.
Have you had a look at Github Pages[1] and Jekyll[2]?<p>[1] <a href="https://pages.github.com/" rel="nofollow">https://pages.github.com/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://jekyllrb.com/docs/quickstart/" rel="nofollow">http://jekyllrb.com/docs/quickstart/</a>
You'll certainly get a lot of different opinions when it comes to static sit generators. This site[1] may help you make up your mind.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.staticgen.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.staticgen.com/</a>
Like the other two posters, I recommend Jekyll. I really like the Poole (<a href="http://getpoole.com/" rel="nofollow">http://getpoole.com/</a>) theme.
Get a Tumblr blog instead. This tool is underrated and much more flexible than people think. You can even host for free with your personal domain. Just SEO is far from perfect IMHO but probably that is not important for you.