The Best Static Site Generator for a WordPress Blog You Don't Want to Maintain
24 Jun, 2026 • 3 min read
Most “best static site generator” articles compare features: build speed, templating, plugin ecosystems. But if you’re a WordPress blogger eyeing static, your real question usually isn’t which has the best features — it’s “which one will I never have to babysit?” That’s a different axis, and it changes the answer.
Reframe the question: it’s about effort, not features
Static options sit on a spectrum of how much work you keep doing:
- Static plugin on top of WordPress (Simply Static, Staatic). You still run, update, and host WordPress — you’ve just added a “publish static” step. Lowest change, but WordPress maintenance doesn’t go away. (Full breakdown here.)
- DIY static site generator (Hugo, Astro, Jekyll). No more WordPress — but now you own the setup: theme, build pipeline, editor, deployments, and keeping dependencies current. (Which one if you go this route?)
- Managed migration. Someone converts your site and sets everything up; you just write. No WordPress, no build pipeline to babysit.
If “don’t want to maintain” is your priority, options 1 and 2 quietly hand you more ongoing work, not less.
What “low-maintenance” actually requires
For a blog you can ignore for six months and come back to:
- A generator that doesn’t churn. This is where the boring choice wins: Jekyll and Hugo are famously stable, while the Node-based ones (Astro, Gatsby) move fast and occasionally need attention. (Is Jekyll still a good pick in 2026?)
- A visual editor, so updating a post doesn’t mean editing Markdown in a code editor. Git-based CMS tools like Sveltia give you a WordPress-like screen.
- Hosting that needs nothing. Static files on a CDN (Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages) have no server to patch and no bill.
- Someone else to have done the setup — because the maintenance you’re avoiding mostly lives in the initial wiring.
The lowest-maintenance path
ZeroPress is built for exactly this reader: it migrates your WordPress blog to Jekyll (chosen for stability and zero-churn), configures a visual editor so you never see code, and hands you a site hosted free with nothing to maintain — for a one-time price, no subscription. (See pricing.) Your rankings carry over, and you own the whole thing.
See if your blog qualifies
The free migration checker tells you in seconds whether your WordPress blog can go static cleanly — no login required. Or compare the full set of WordPress alternatives first.