Imagine launching a documentation portal with 5,000 pages, multilingual support, search, and quick deployment. A dynamic CMS would lag, while Jekyll build takes 10 minutes. You choose Hugo — and the first build finishes in 3 seconds. Hugo is written in Go, delivering lightning-fast builds: for a 10,000-page project, incremental builds take under a second, full regeneration under 10 seconds. We offer turnkey Hugo website development: from architecture to CI/CD, tailored to your performance and scalability needs. Over the years, we've completed more than 50 Hugo projects, so we know all the pitfalls.
Problems We Solve
Slow build times. A typical static site builds 10–50 times faster with Hugo than with Jekyll or Eleventy, thanks to Go compilation and parallel page processing. For a 10,000-page site, full regeneration takes less than 10 seconds. Multilingual complexity. Hugo supports i18n natively — no plugins needed. Configuring two languages takes about 15 minutes. Tricky deployment. We set up CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, or Netlify) — after a commit, the site is automatically rebuilt and uploaded to a CDN.
Why Hugo Surpasses Jekyll and Eleventy
Key metrics comparison:
| Parameter |
Hugo |
Jekyll |
Eleventy |
| Language |
Go |
Ruby |
JavaScript |
| Build time (1,000 pages) |
0.5–2 s |
30–60 s |
5–15 s |
| Built-in i18n |
Yes |
No (plugin) |
Yes (complex) |
| Pipes (SCSS/JS/Img) |
Yes |
No |
No (via plugins) |
| Multithreading |
Yes |
No |
Partial |
Hugo builds 1,000 pages 30 times faster than Jekyll and 10 times faster than Eleventy. This allows rebuilding the site on every content change with zero delays.
How to Set Up Multilingual Support in Hugo
There are two approaches. By subdirectories: create folders content/ru/, content/en/, etc. in the root. Configuration:
defaultContentLanguage = "ru"
[languages.ru]
languageName = "Russian"
weight = 1
[languages.en]
languageName = "English"
weight = 2
contentDir = "content/en"
By file suffix: files like post.ru.md and post.en.md reside in the same folder. The second method is more convenient for small projects. UI strings are stored in i18n/ru.yaml and called via {{ i18n "readMore" }}.
From Our Practice: Documentation Portal Case
A client needed an API documentation site with 2,000 pages, versioning (v1, v2), and search via Meilisearch. We designed the architecture:
mysite/
├── content/
│ ├── v1/
│ └── v2/
├── data/
│ └── versions.yaml
├── layouts/
│ ├── _default/
│ │ └── baseof.html
│ └── shortcodes/
│ └── api-endpoint.html
├── assets/
│ └── sass/
└── config/
└── _default/
We used Hugo Pipes to compile SCSS and JS, Image Processing for WebP images. Search was implemented via a static JSON index that Hugo generates at build time. Deployment: GitHub Actions + S3 + CloudFront. Result: page load speed under 0.5 s globally, with Core Web Vitals in the green zone.
How Build Time Scales with Project Size
Here are the numbers for different project sizes:
| Number of pages |
Hugo |
Jekyll |
Eleventy |
| 100 |
<0.1 s |
1–2 s |
0.5–1 s |
| 1,000 |
0.5–2 s |
30–60 s |
5–15 s |
| 10,000 |
5–10 s |
5–10 min |
1–2 min |
Even at 10,000 pages, Hugo stays within a few seconds, making it ideal for large content projects. Hugo is optimal for: documentation portals, blogs, corporate websites, landing pages. We do not recommend it for e-commerce with thousands of products and frequent updates — a dynamic backend is needed there. Also, Hugo requires a developer for structure setup, so it may not suit teams without technical support.
Work Process
- Analysis — review content, structure, performance and SEO requirements.
- Design — create taxonomy schemas, templates, and multilingual configuration.
- Implementation — develop templates, shortcodes, configure Hugo Pipes and data files.
- Testing — verify build speed, load time, Core Web Vitals, and search functionality.
- Deployment — set up CI/CD, HTTPS, CDN, and monitoring.
What's Included
- Project architecture design and custom theme (if needed).
- Multilingual setup (up to 5 languages).
- Search integration (Meilisearch, Lunr, or Elasticlunr).
- Asset compilation and optimization via Hugo Pipes.
- CI/CD deployment (Netlify, GitHub Actions, or GitLab CI).
- Documentation on structure and guide for content editors.
- One month of post-launch support.
Our engineers have experience with Hugo since its early releases and are certified in Go templates. We guarantee the final site passes Core Web Vitals audit and is indexed by search engines without delays.
Estimated Timelines
- Simple corporate site on an existing theme — 5 to 7 days.
- Custom development from scratch (architecture + templates + multilingual + CI/CD) — 2 to 4 weeks.
- Large documentation portal or news site with hundreds of pages — 1 to 2 months.
Exact timeline and cost are determined individually after an audit of your requirements. Contact us for a free project assessment. Order Hugo website development and get a no-obligation consultation.
Hugo is an open-source static site generator developed by Steve Francia. Learn more in the official documentation.
Choosing a Site Type is a Technical Task, Not Marketing
We see teams waste budget on the wrong stack. A landing page on Next.js with static generation and a corporate site with CMS are fundamentally different infrastructures, even if they look similar. A mistake at the start leads to 5–10x higher hosting costs and slow loading speeds. Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, TTFB) have different priorities for each site type. Below we break down four types of websites, their typical technical mistakes, and how we fix them.
How to Avoid Mistakes When Choosing a CMS?
Business Card Website
The most compact format: 1–5 pages, minimal dynamics. The main goal is to provide contact information and make a first impression. Technically not complex, but there are traps.
Stack too heavy. WordPress with 15 plugins for 5 pages gives 800ms TTFB on shared hosting. We propose static: HTML/CSS/JS or Next.js with output: 'export', deployed on Vercel or Cloudflare Pages. No PHP, no database — only CDN. TTFB < 50ms guaranteed. Hosting savings up to 50,000 ₽ per year.
No contact form with backend validation. A form with only JS validation is decoration. The backend must validate, rate-limit, and send notifications. For static sites we use Formspree or a serverless endpoint.
Missing Schema.org markup. Google Knowledge Panel relies on LocalBusiness or Organization markup — address, phone, hours. For a business card site this is critical. We embed it in the template.
Development time: 2–3 weeks with design. Order a turnkey development — we will evaluate your project in one day.
Why Does Landing Page Speed Directly Affect Conversion?
Landing Page
A landing page has one goal: conversion. Everything not leading to the target action is unnecessary. Core Web Vitals are critical here because of paid traffic, and Google uses CWV as a factor in Quality Score.
A specific case: a landing page with an 8MB hero video autoplay in MP4 without preload="none" + three third-party analytics scripts synchronously in <head>. LCP 9.4s, INP 780ms. We replaced the video with a poster image loaded lazily on scroll, moved scripts to async/defer and partially to Web Workers via Partytown. LCP 1.8s, INP 140ms. Conversion increased by 23% — solely due to speed, not design.
A/B testing is standard practice. Google Optimize shut down, but there are Growthbook (open source), PostHog, VWO. For Next.js we use edge middleware to distribute traffic at the CDN level without extra JS.
Timeline: 2–4 weeks. Contact us for a consultation — we will estimate timeline and budget in one day.
Corporate Website
A corporate site means CMS, multiple sections, multilingual support, CRM integration. The key question: who will edit the content and how often.
If editors are non-technical, a visual editor is needed. WordPress with Gutenberg or ACF Pro covers this. For complex structures — headless CMS (Strapi, Directus) with a frontend on Next.js. If the site updates infrequently — Markdown in Git with Astro or Next.js. Deploy on push to main — no CMS.
Performance. An "About Us" page with 40 original photos — LCP 12 seconds on mobile. Next.js <Image> component with WebP and srcset solves it without manual work.
Multilingual: Astrotomic Translatable on Laravel or next-intl / react-i18next. URL structure — /ru/about, /en/about with hreflang.
Timeline: 6–12 weeks depending on scope.
Promo Site
A promo site is temporary or permanent for a campaign. Non-standard design, animations, interactivity. Stack: GSAP, Framer Motion, Three.js, Lottie, Canvas API.
The main pitfall — animations that lag on mobile. GPU animations via transform and opacity are fine. box-shadow in animation, filter: blur() on every frame, animating width/height — causes 20fps on iPhone 12. will-change: transform helps pointwise.
Prefers-reduced-motion is mandatory for accessibility. We always add it.
Timeline: 3–6 weeks depending on complexity.
Comparison Table
| Parameter |
Business Card |
Corporate |
Landing Page |
Promo |
| Pages |
1–5 |
10–50+ |
1–3 |
1–10 |
| CMS |
Not needed |
Needed |
Not needed |
Rarely |
| SEO priority |
Medium |
High |
High |
Low |
| Animations |
Minimal |
Moderate |
Moderate |
Intensive |
| Timeline (with design) |
2–3 weeks |
6–12 weeks |
2–4 weeks |
3–6 weeks |
Cost is calculated individually after studying the technical specification. Google recommends TTFB under 0.8s, ours is <0.2s.
What Does Our Work Include?
- Analytics and prototyping (structure, user scenarios)
- Design concept (responsive, mobile-first)
- Layout with LCP, CLS, INP optimization
- CMS selection and setup (if needed)
- Integration with CRM/marketing tools
- Testing (cross-browser, load testing)
- Documentation and access transfer
- Editor training (video + written)
- 3-month warranty (free fixes)
Our Expertise
We have been on the market for 10+ years, completed 200+ projects — from simple business cards to high-traffic landing pages with millions of audience. Every project undergoes Core Web Vitals audit before release.
Second Table: Approach Comparison
| Approach |
TTFB (ms) |
Maintenance Complexity |
Cost |
| Static HTML/CSS |
<50 |
Low |
from 50,000 ₽ |
| Next.js + headless CMS |
<200 |
Medium |
from 150,000 ₽ |
| WordPress + plugins |
500–1500 |
High |
from 300,000 ₽ |
Image optimization: we automatically convert to WebP/AVIF, generate srcset for all resolutions, use lazy loading with Intersection Observer. For background images — progressive loading technique. This alone cuts page weight by 60–80%.
Contact us for a consultation on your project. Order turnkey development — we will estimate timeline and budget in one day.
