Key takeaway: The case for Hexo is a theme you already like and a community you are already part of, which for many developers in China and Japan is a real and sufficient reason. Judged on capability, Astro and Eleventy have moved past it. Judged on how fast a good-looking blog gets online with a stock theme, it still holds up.
Quick facts
- LanguageJavaScript
- CategoryJS / TS plain
- LicenseMIT
- Created2012
- GitHub stars39.5k
- Statusmature
Templating: EJS Pug Nunjucks Markdown
What it is
Hexo is a Node-based blog generator that has been around since 2012. Strong adoption in Chinese and Japanese developer communities. Theme ecosystem is mature; the framework opinions are tuned for blogs specifically.
Best for
- Personal developer blogs in Asia where Hexo themes are well-known
- Quick setup for a blog when an existing theme fits
When not to pick it
Skip Hexo for non-blog sites or for sites that need component-based UI. The blog opinions get in the way for marketing or documentation work.
My take
Hexo is fine for what it is, a blog generator with a theme ecosystem. New projects in 2026 outside the existing community usually pick Astro or Eleventy instead.
The theme ecosystem is the product
Hexo's durable asset is not the generator, it is the themes. The major ones are mature, heavily documented, and configurable to a level where most people never touch a template at all. Around them sits a plugin set covering sitemaps, feeds, local search, comments, and deployer plugins that push a build to GitHub Pages or a bucket with one command. The documentation and tutorial ecosystem in Chinese and Japanese is deep in a way no Western-origin generator matches, and if that is the language you debug in, it outweighs a lot of technical comparison. The workflow is one command to scaffold a post, another to build, another to deploy, and nothing in between demands a decision. For a developer who wants a personal blog online this weekend and has no intention of designing it, that is a strong offer.
Blog opinions you cannot easily escape
The content model is posts, pages, categories, and tags, and stepping outside it is uphill work. Arbitrary content types, structured data for a directory, or anything resembling a marketing site means fighting conventions rather than using them. Customising beyond theme options puts you inside somebody else's templates with their own styling build, which is a worse position than owning your own layer. Plugin maintenance is uneven, and a stale plugin in the chain is a common cause of build breakage on blogs that sat untouched for a year. There is no component model and no islands story, so interactive pieces are hand-rolled scripts you attach. Build speed is fine for a blog and unremarkable next to Hugo at scale. If the site will ever be more than a blog, start somewhere generalist instead of converting later.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hexo still a good choice for a blog?
For a personal developer blog where a stock theme fits, yes, particularly if you are already in the community around it. For anything you expect to grow into documentation, a marketing site, or structured content, start with a generalist tool, because Hexo's blog conventions are hard to work around later.
Hexo or Hugo?
Hugo for build speed, a much larger theme selection, multilingual support, and a single binary with no Node in the pipeline. Hexo if you want to configure the build in JavaScript, or if a specific Hexo theme is the whole reason you are choosing. At typical personal blog scale, readers notice no performance difference.
Can Hexo do more than blogs?
It can render standalone pages and you can bend it further with plugins, but the model is built around posts with dates, categories, and tags. Documentation, product pages, or a structured directory all fight the conventions. Eleventy or Astro handle mixed content types natively and cost less over the life of the site.
Links
Compare Hexo side-by-side
Similar tools you should also consider
If Hexo is your pick, the next conversation is short
The 30-min call is where your project gets a real architecture, an SEO transport plan, and a price range you can take to your team. Describe your site, your timeline, your existing content. I tell you whether Hexo is genuinely the right call for you, and what the build actually looks like.