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Hugo static site with Nginx

Hugo is one of the fastest static site generators available — write content in Markdown, generate a complete site in milliseconds, and serve the resulting plain HTML files with Nginx for maximum speed and minimal attack surface.

Target: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS / 24.04 LTSstatic-site-generatorNginxMarkdownOfficial homepage ↗Official docs ↗
This guide is synthesized from Hugo static site with Nginx's own official documentation, linked above — always cross-check exact package/version names there before running these commands on a production server, since distro and project versions move over time.

  1. 1Install Hugo

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt install -y hugo

  2. 2Create and build a new site

    Hugo scaffolds a full project structure, and `hugo` (with no arguments) builds it into a `public/` folder of plain static HTML/CSS/JS.

    hugo new site mysite
    cd mysite
    git submodule add https://github.com/theNewDynamic/gohugo-theme-ananke.git themes/ananke
    echo "theme = 'ananke'" >> hugo.toml
    hugo

  3. 3Serve the built site with Nginx

    Point Nginx's root directly at Hugo's public/ output folder -- there's no PHP, no database, and nothing else running at request time.

    sudo apt install -y nginx
    sudo cp -r public/* /var/www/html/

    Rebuild and re-copy the public/ folder (or automate it with a CI pipeline) every time content changes -- unlike a CMS, a static site never updates itself.