Why I Wrote a Static Site Generator in C

Most static site generators are more than I need. They pull in a large runtime, a pile of dependencies, and a config format I have to relearn every time I come back to it.

I wanted something small: read some Markdown, apply a template, write HTML. That is most of what a blog needs. C felt like a good fit because it forces me to keep the scope narrow and the binary is a single file I can copy to a server.

The result is atomik-ssg. It is not trying to compete with the big tools. It does the few things I actually use, and I understand every line of it. For a personal site, that trade is worth it.