hugo/docs/content/showcase/forestry/index.md

---
title: Forestry.io
date: 2018-03-16
description: "A Git-backed CMS (content management system) for websites and web products built using static site generators."
siteURL: https://forestry.io/
siteSource: https://github.com/forestryio/forestry.io
---

It was clear from the get-go that we had to go with a static site generator. Static sites are secure, performant, and give you 100% flexibility. At [Forestry.io](https://forestry.io/) we provide Content Management Solutions for websites built with static site generators, so we might be a little biased. The only question: Which static site generator was the right choice for us?

### Why Hugo?

In our early research we looked at Ionic’s [site](https://github.com/ionic-team/ionic) to get some inspiration. They used Jekyll to build their website. While Jekyll is a great generator, the build times for larger sites can be painfully slow. With more than 150 pages plus many custom configurations and add-ons, our website doesn’t fall into the low-volume category anymore. Our developers want a smooth experience when working on the website and our content editors need the ability to preview content quickly. In short, we need our builds to be lightning fast.

We knew Hugo was fast but we did [some additional benchmarking](https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll-benchmark/) before making our decision. Seeing Hugo in action is a whole different world of awesome. Hugo takes less than one second to build our 150-page site! Take a look:

```bash
                   | EN   
+------------------+-----+
  Pages            | 141  
  Paginator pages  |   4  
  Non-page files   |   0  
  Static files     | 537  
  Processed images |   0  
  Aliases          |  60  
  Sitemaps         |   1  
  Cleaned          |   0  

Total in 739 ms
```

In fact, we liked Hugo so much that our wizard Chris made his workflow public and we started the open-source project [Create-Static-Site](https://github.com/forestryio/create-static-site). It's [a simple way to spin up sites](https://forestry.io/blog/up-and-running-with-hugo/) and set up a modern web development workflow with one line of code. Essentially it adds build configurations as a dependency for JS, CSS and Image Processing.

Lastly, we want to take the opportunity to give some love to other amazing tools we used building our website.

### What tools did we use?

* Our Norwegian designer Nichlas is in love with [**Sketch**](https://www.sketchapp.com/). From what we hear it’s a designer’s dream come true.
* Some say our main graphic is [mesmerizing](https://twitter.com/hmncllctv/status/968907474664284160). Nichlas created it using [**3DS Max**](https://www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/overview).
* [**Hugo**](https://gohugo.io/) -- of course.
* Chris can’t think of modern web development without [**Gulp**](https://gulpjs.com/) & [**Webpack**](https://webpack.js.org/). We used them to add additional build steps such as Browsersync, CSS, JS and SVG optimization.
* Speaking about adding steps to our build, our lives would be much harder without [**CircleCI**](https://circleci.com/) for continuous deployment and automated testing purposes.
* We can’t stop raving about [**Algolia**](https://www.algolia.com/). Chris loves it and even wrote a tutorial on [how to implement Algolia]([https://forestry.io/blog/search-with-algolia-in-hugo/) into static sites using Hugo’s [Custom Outputs](https://gohugo.io/templates/output-formats/).
*  [**Cloudinary**](https://cloudinary.com/) is probably one of the easiest ways to get responsive images into your website.
* We might be a little biased on this one - We think [**Forestry.io**](https://forestry.io/) is a great way to add a content management system with a clean UI on top of your site without interrupting your experience as a developer.
* For hosting purposes we use the almighty [**AWS**](https://aws.amazon.com/).
* [**Formspree.io**](https://formspree.io/) is managing our support and enterprise requests.
* We also use browser cookies and JS to customize our user’s experience and give it a more dynamic feel.
-												Squashed 'docs/' changes from 4e7e1815b..211a3c613

211a3c613 Prepare the forestry.io article for release
23995d6b4 Add forestry.io to showcase
3f177c94e Fix some typos (found by codespell)
dc26e0a5a Clarify the default for site config files and multiple config files
c87c9c62e Review and update the Site config documentation for consistency
a29edc50c Fix the default value of rssLimit site config
83f3c46b0 Minor style fix
4f860d1a2 Typo capitalization fixes
7851345c8 Add docs about comments within templates
d129b4a28 Make the recommendation to use partial over template consistent
6cd260a41 Update index.md
a2787e1a4 Add Let’s Encrypt showcase
7e664f69e Update configuration.md
8002120f1 Update multilingual.md
702b46a62 Add documentation for the disableLanguages setting
cb3d395de Fix content type reference
d33226924 Update Page Kinds documentation
8203f649d Fix misformed markdown link
19e99c957 Add Section definition

git-subtree-dir: docs
git-subtree-split: 211a3c6136c69f49baeae6cd35e5a8853cddf710

											
										
										
											2018-03-16 04:44:54 -04:00
+								---
 								title: Forestry.io
 								date: 2018-03-16
 								description: "A Git-backed CMS (content management system) for websites and web products built using static site generators."
 								siteURL: https://forestry.io/
 								siteSource: https://github.com/forestryio/forestry.io
 								---
 								It was clear from the get-go that we had to go with a static site generator. Static sites are secure, performant, and give you 100% flexibility. At [Forestry.io](https://forestry.io/) we provide Content Management Solutions for websites built with static site generators, so we might be a little biased. The only question: Which static site generator was the right choice for us?
 								### Why Hugo?
 								In our early research we looked at Ionic’s [site](https://github.com/ionic-team/ionic) to get some inspiration. They used Jekyll to build their website. While Jekyll is a great generator, the build times for larger sites can be painfully slow. With more than 150 pages plus many custom configurations and add-ons, our website doesn’t fall into the low-volume category anymore. Our developers want a smooth experience when working on the website and our content editors need the ability to preview content quickly. In short, we need our builds to be lightning fast.
 								We knew Hugo was fast but we did [some additional benchmarking](https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll-benchmark/) before making our decision. Seeing Hugo in action is a whole different world of awesome. Hugo takes less than one second to build our 150-page site! Take a look:
 								```bash
 								                   | EN
 								+------------------+-----+
 								  Pages            | 141
 								  Paginator pages  |   4
 								  Non-page files   |   0
 								  Static files     | 537
 								  Processed images |   0
 								  Aliases          |  60
 								  Sitemaps         |   1
 								  Cleaned          |   0
 								Total in 739 ms
 								```
 								In fact, we liked Hugo so much that our wizard Chris made his workflow public and we started the open-source project [Create-Static-Site](https://github.com/forestryio/create-static-site). It's [a simple way to spin up sites](https://forestry.io/blog/up-and-running-with-hugo/) and set up a modern web development workflow with one line of code. Essentially it adds build configurations as a dependency for JS, CSS and Image Processing.
 								Lastly, we want to take the opportunity to give some love to other amazing tools we used building our website.
 								### What tools did we use?
 								* Our Norwegian designer Nichlas is in love with [**Sketch**](https://www.sketchapp.com/). From what we hear it’s a designer’s dream come true.
 								* Some say our main graphic is [mesmerizing](https://twitter.com/hmncllctv/status/968907474664284160). Nichlas created it using [**3DS Max**](https://www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/overview).
 								* [**Hugo**](https://gohugo.io/) -- of course.
 								* Chris can’t think of modern web development without [**Gulp**](https://gulpjs.com/) & [**Webpack**](https://webpack.js.org/). We used them to add additional build steps such as Browsersync, CSS, JS and SVG optimization.
 								* Speaking about adding steps to our build, our lives would be much harder without [**CircleCI**](https://circleci.com/) for continuous deployment and automated testing purposes.
 								* We can’t stop raving about [**Algolia**](https://www.algolia.com/). Chris loves it and even wrote a tutorial on [how to implement Algolia]([https://forestry.io/blog/search-with-algolia-in-hugo/) into static sites using Hugo’s [Custom Outputs](https://gohugo.io/templates/output-formats/).
 								*  [**Cloudinary**](https://cloudinary.com/) is probably one of the easiest ways to get responsive images into your website.
 								* We might be a little biased on this one - We think [**Forestry.io**](https://forestry.io/) is a great way to add a content management system with a clean UI on top of your site without interrupting your experience as a developer.
 								* For hosting purposes we use the almighty [**AWS**](https://aws.amazon.com/).
 								* [**Formspree.io**](https://formspree.io/) is managing our support and enterprise requests.
 								* We also use browser cookies and JS to customize our user’s experience and give it a more dynamic feel.