TL;DR — Quick Summary

Hugo builds static sites in milliseconds. Write in Markdown, choose a theme, and deploy anywhere. The fastest static site generator available.

Hugo builds entire websites in milliseconds. Write content in Markdown, pick a theme, run hugo — done. No Node.js, no bundler, no waiting.

Installation

# macOS
brew install hugo

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S hugo

# Snap
sudo snap install hugo

# Go install
go install github.com/gohugoio/hugo@latest

Quick Start

# Create a new site
hugo new site mysite
cd mysite

# Add a theme
git init
git submodule add https://github.com/theNewDynamic/gohugo-theme-ananke themes/ananke
echo 'theme = "ananke"' >> hugo.toml

# Create your first post
hugo new content posts/hello-world.md

# Start dev server (live reload)
hugo server -D

# Build for production
hugo
# Output in public/ — deploy anywhere

Content Organization

mysite/
├── content/
│   ├── posts/           # Blog posts
│   ├── about/           # About page
│   └── projects/        # Custom section
├── layouts/             # Custom templates
├── static/              # Static assets
├── themes/              # Themes
└── hugo.toml            # Configuration

Key Features

FeatureDetails
Build speed10,000 pages in ~1 second
ContentMarkdown with YAML/TOML/JSON frontmatter
Themes400+ themes at themes.gohugo.io
i18nBuilt-in multilingual support
TaxonomiesTags, categories, custom taxonomies
ShortcodesReusable content snippets
DeployCloudflare Pages, Netlify, GitHub Pages, S3

Summary

  • Hugo is the fastest static site generator — builds in milliseconds
  • Write in Markdown, deploy as static HTML anywhere
  • 400+ themes, built-in i18n, taxonomies, and shortcodes
  • Single Go binary, no dependencies, no Node.js required
  • Perfect for blogs, docs, portfolios, and marketing sites