Cobalt review
A free Rust-based generator for Markdown blogs with practical publishing workflows.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Cobalt is an open-source static-site generator written in Rust for developers building Markdown-driven websites, especially blogs. It converts Markdown and Liquid templates into HTML and supports pages, posts, drafts, layouts, assets, data files, pagination, RSS feeds, JSON feeds, syntax highlighting, and Sass processing. The workflow runs locally from the command line, with commands for initializing sites, creating content, previewing changes, publishing posts, building output, and deploying generated files.
Cobalt’s pricing is straightforward: it is free and open source, with no paid tier structure to compare. That makes it suitable for personal blogs, documentation sites, and small projects that want a generator without recurring software costs. Its platform coverage includes Windows, macOS, and Linux, while Git integration and deployment workflows for GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Travis CI, and self-hosted servers support common repository-based publishing patterns. The published capabilities center on Markdown content and static output rather than a broader hosted publishing service.
The product’s strongest fit is a Rust-oriented blog workflow that values direct control over templates, content files, builds, and deployment. Liquid layouts, YAML frontmatter, drafts, pagination, local file watching, and feed generation cover the core needs of a regularly updated blog. The trade-off is narrower feature breadth than some larger static-site generators, so teams seeking a wider ecosystem or more extensive publishing scope may prefer an alternative. Choose Cobalt when a free, open-source, Rust-based Markdown workflow is the priority; look elsewhere when breadth beyond its focused static-site feature set matters more.
Cobalt pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Markdown, Liquid layouts, drafts, pagination, and feed generation
- Local preview server with file watching and syntax highlighting
- Deploys to GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, or self-hosted servers
- Where it doesn't
- Narrower feature breadth than larger static-site generators
- Uses a command-line workflow for site setup and publishing
- Rust-based tooling may not fit teams seeking another language ecosystem
Cobalt fact sheet, pricing and score →
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