Toucan

What Toucan is

Toucan is a free static site generator written in Swift. It uses Markdown for content and Mustache as its template engine to produce static HTML pages. The maker describes it as suitable for developers, content creators, and businesses creating sites such as blogs, portfolios, or business websites. Toucan says generated sites can be hosted for free on GitHub Pages, and its deployment guide covers publishing there.

Official starter templates include options for documentation sites and blogs. Template features include guide navigation, article search, and customization. The documentation also explains how to add Google Analytics by placing Google’s gtag.js snippet in a site template, and provides integration guides for Google Tag Manager and Facebook Pixel. Toucan includes a local preview server and supports multilingual sites. Its documentation describes serving static HTML through a simple file server as a way to provide faster load times and better security than pages generated dynamically for each request.

During the beta release, Toucan is available only for macOS and Linux; Windows support is described as coming soon. macOS installation options include Homebrew, Mint, prebuilt binaries, a PKG installer, and compiling from source. Linux options include .deb or .rpm packages, Homebrew, and compiling from source. Its listed plan is free, with free use on GitHub forever and open-source availability.

Who it suits

Toucan suits developers, content creators, and businesses building blogs, portfolios, or business websites. It is a fit for people who want to author content in Markdown and generate static HTML using a Swift-based tool.

Limits

During the beta release, Toucan is available only on macOS and Linux. Windows support is described as coming soon.

Getting started

1. Visit the Toucan website and choose the macOS or Linux installation guide.
2. Install on macOS with Homebrew, Mint, a prebuilt binary, the PKG installer, or from source.
3. Install on Linux with a .deb or .rpm package, Homebrew, or from source.
4. Use Markdown content and Mustache templates to generate static HTML.
5. Preview the site with the local preview server.
6. Publish a Toucan-based site using the GitHub Pages deployment guide.

Verdict

Choose Toucan if you want a free, open-source static site generator that uses Markdown and Swift, with starter templates and GitHub Pages deployment guidance. People using Windows should look elsewhere until support is available beyond the beta platforms.