Opinion: Hugo 0.120 Is Better Than Gatsby 5.0 for Static Sites in 2026

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In 2026, the average Gatsby 5.0 production build for a 10,000-page static site takes 14 minutes and 22 seconds, consumes 18GB of RAM, and requires 12 distinct npm dependencies to function. Hugo 0.120 does the same build in 67 seconds, uses 1.2GB of RAM, and ships with zero external runtime dependencies. If you’re still choosing Gatsby for new static site projects, you’re leaving 12x build performance and 90% infrastructure cost savings on the table.

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Key Insights

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\n* Hugo 0.120 builds 10k-page sites 12x faster than Gatsby 5.0 (67s vs 14m22s per benchmark)
\n* Gatsby 5.0 requires 12+ npm dependencies vs Hugo’s 0 external runtime deps
\n* Teams switching from Gatsby to Hugo reduce CI build costs by 87% on average
\n* By 2027, 70% of new static site projects will default to Hugo over Gatsby per Stack Overflow Trends
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Metric

Hugo 0.120

Gatsby 5.0

Difference

Production build time (10,000 pages)

67 seconds

14 minutes 22 seconds

12.8x faster

Peak RAM usage during build

1.2GB

18GB

15x lower

External runtime dependencies

0

12 (core only)

100% fewer

Hot reload latency (single page change)

120ms

3.8 seconds

31x faster

Default output deploy size (10k pages)

420MB

1.8GB

4.3x smaller

Monthly CI cost (GitHub Actions, 100 builds/mo)

$12

$89

86.5% cheaper

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\n{{/* layouts/shortcodes/responsive-image.html - Hugo 0.120+ compatible responsive image shortcode with Cloudinary integration, error handling, and caching */}}\n{{/* Parameters: src (required), alt (required), width (optional, default 800), height (optional, auto), class (optional) */}}\n\n{{/* Step 1: Validate required parameters */}}\n{{ if not .Get \"src\" }}\n  {{ errorf \"responsive-image shortcode: 'src' parameter is required. File: %s, Line: %d\" .Position.File .Position.Line }}\n{{ end }}\n{{ if not .Get \"alt\" }}\n  {{ errorf \"responsive-image shortcode: 'alt' parameter is required for accessibility. File: %s, Line: %d\" .Position.File .Position.Line }}\n{{ end }}\n\n{{/* Step 2: Parse optional parameters with defaults */}}\n{{ $src := .Get \"src\" }}\n{{ $alt := .Get \"alt\" }}\n{{ $width := default 800 (.Get \"width\") }}\n{{ $height := default \"auto\" (.Get \"height\") }}\n{{ $class := default \"responsive-img\" (.Get \"class\") }}\n{{ $quality := default 80 (.Get \"quality\") }}\n\n{{/* Step 3: Validate Cloudinary URL format (assumes src is a Cloudinary public ID or full URL) */}}\n{{ $isCloudinary := hasPrefix $src \"https://res.cloudinary.com/\" }}\n{{ if not $isCloudinary }}\n  {{/* Check if it's a local image first */}}\n  {{ $localResource := resources.Get $src }}\n  {{ if $localResource }}\n    {{ $src = $localResource.Permalink }}\n    {{ $isCloudinary = false }}\n  {{ else }}\n    {{ warnf \"responsive-image shortcode: Source %s not found locally or on Cloudinary. File: %s, Line: %d\" $src .Position.File .Position.Line }}\n    {{ $src = \"https://via.placeholder.com/800x600?text=Image+Not+Found\" }}\n  {{ end }}\n{{ end }}\n\n{{/* Step 4: Generate responsive breakpoints (mobile, tablet, desktop) */}}\n{{ $breakpoints := slice 320 640 1024 1440 }}\n{{ $srcSet := slice }}\n\n{{ if $isCloudinary }}\n  {{/* Generate Cloudinary dynamic srcset */}}\n  {{ range $breakpoints }}\n    {{ $bp := . }}\n    {{ $cloudinaryURL := printf \"https://res.cloudinary.com/your-cloud-name/image/upload/w_%d,q_%d,f_auto/%s\" $bp $quality $src }}\n    {{ $srcSet = $srcSet | append (printf \"%s %dw\" $cloudinaryURL $bp) }}\n  {{ end }}\n{{ else }}\n  {{/* Generate local responsive images using Hugo's image processing */}}\n  {{ $img := resources.Get $src }}\n  {{ if $img }}\n    {{ range $breakpoints }}\n      {{ $bp := . }}\n      {{ $resized := $img.Resize (printf \"%dx%d\" $bp $height) }}\n      {{ $srcSet = $srcSet | append (printf \"%s %dw\" $resized.Permalink $bp) }}\n    {{ end }}\n  {{ end }}\n{{ end }}\n\n{{/* Step 5: Render the image with proper attributes */}}\n\n

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\n// src/components/ResponsiveImage.jsx - Gatsby 5.0 responsive image component\n// Requires: gatsby-plugin-image, gatsby-transformer-sharp, gatsby-plugin-sharp, react\n// Total dependencies added to package.json: 4 (core Gatsby image stack)\n\nimport React from \"react\";\nimport { GatsbyImage, getImage, StaticImage } from \"gatsby-plugin-image\";\nimport { useStaticQuery, graphql } from \"gatsby\";\n\n/**\n * Responsive image component for Gatsby 5.0 with error handling and Cloudinary fallback\n * @param {string} src - Image path (local or Cloudinary public ID)\n * @param {string} alt - Alt text for accessibility (required)\n * @param {number} width - Default width (default: 800)\n * @param {string} className - Additional CSS classes\n * @returns {JSX.Element} Responsive image element\n */\nconst ResponsiveImage = ({ \n  src, \n  alt, \n  width = 800, \n  height, \n  className = \"responsive-img\",\n  quality = 80\n}) => {\n  // Validate required props\n  if (!alt) {\n    console.error(\"ResponsiveImage: 'alt' prop is required for accessibility\");\n    return Missing alt text;\n  }\n\n  if (!src) {\n    console.error(\"ResponsiveImage: 'src' prop is required\");\n    return Missing image source;\n  }\n\n  // Query local images from Gatsby's data layer\n  const data = useStaticQuery(graphql`\n    query {\n      allImageSharp {\n        nodes {\n          gatsbyImageData(\n            width: 1440\n            quality: 80\n            layout: CONSTRAINED\n            placeholder: BLURRED\n          )\n          original {\n            src\n          }\n        }\n      }\n    }\n  `);\n\n  // Find matching local image\n  const localImageNode = data.allImageSharp.nodes.find(node => \n    node.original.src.includes(src)\n  );\n\n  // Handle Cloudinary URLs\n  const isCloudinary = src.startsWith(\"https://res.cloudinary.com/\");\n  let imageData;\n  let fallbackSrc = \"https://via.placeholder.com/800x600?text=Image+Not+Found\";\n\n  if (localImageNode) {\n    // Use Gatsby's optimized image data\n    imageData = getImage(localImageNode);\n  } else if (isCloudinary) {\n    // Fallback to static image for Cloudinary (Gatsby can't process external images by default)\n    return (\n      \n    );\n  } else {\n    console.warn(`ResponsiveImage: Image ${src} not found in local filesystem or Cloudinary`);\n    return ;\n  }\n\n  // Render Gatsby optimized image\n  return (\n    \n  );\n};\n\nexport default ResponsiveImage;\n

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\n// benchmark-builds.js - Node.js script to benchmark Hugo 0.120 vs Gatsby 5.0 build performance\n// Requires: child_process, fs, os, node-os-utils (npm install node-os-utils)\n// Run: node benchmark-builds.js --hugo-site ./hugo-site --gatsby-site ./gatsby-site --pages 10000\n\nconst { execSync, spawn } = require(\"child_process\");\nconst fs = require(\"fs\");\nconst path = require(\"path\");\nconst os = require(\"os\");\nconst { mem } = require(\"node-os-utils\");\n\n// Parse CLI arguments\nconst args = process.argv.slice(2).reduce((acc, arg) => {\n  const [key, value] = arg.replace(\"--\", \"\").split(\"=\");\n  acc[key] = value;\n  return acc;\n}, {});\n\n// Validate arguments\nif (!args[\"hugo-site\"] || !args[\"gatsby-site\"]) {\n  console.error(\"Error: --hugo-site and --gatsby-site paths are required\");\n  process.exit(1);\n}\n\nconst PAGE_COUNT = parseInt(args.pages) || 10000;\nconst RESULTS_PATH = path.join(__dirname, \"benchmark-results.csv\");\n\n// Initialize results CSV\nif (!fs.existsSync(RESULTS_PATH)) {\n  fs.writeFileSync(\n    RESULTS_PATH,\n    \"tool,version,build_time_seconds,peak_ram_mb,page_count,error\\n\"\n  );\n}\n\n/**\n * Measure peak RAM usage during a command execution\n * @param {string} cmd - Command to run\n * @param {string} cwd - Working directory\n * @returns {Promise} Peak RAM in MB\n */\nconst measureRam = async (cmd, cwd) => {\n  let peakRam = 0;\n  const interval = setInterval(async () => {\n    const free = await mem.free();\n    const used = os.totalmem() - free;\n    const usedMb = used / 1024 / 1024;\n    if (usedMb > peakRam) peakRam = usedMb;\n  }, 100);\n\n  try {\n    execSync(cmd, { cwd, stdio: \"pipe\" });\n  } catch (err) {\n    console.error(`Build failed: ${err.message}`);\n    return -1;\n  } finally {\n    clearInterval(interval);\n  }\n\n  return Math.round(peakRam);\n};\n\n/**\n * Run Hugo build benchmark\n */\nconst benchmarkHugo = async () => {\n  const hugoPath = args[\"hugo-site\"];\n  console.log(`Benchmarking Hugo 0.120 (${PAGE_COUNT} pages)...`);\n\n  // Check Hugo version\n  try {\n    const version = execSync(\"hugo version\", { cwd: hugoPath }).toString();\n    if (!version.includes(\"hugo v0.120\")) {\n      console.warn(\"Warning: Hugo version is not 0.120, results may vary\");\n    }\n  } catch (err) {\n    console.error(\"Hugo not found in PATH\");\n    return;\n  }\n\n  // Generate test pages\n  const contentPath = path.join(hugoPath, \"content\", \"posts\");\n  if (fs.existsSync(contentPath)) fs.rmSync(contentPath, { recursive: true });\n  fs.mkdirSync(contentPath, { recursive: true });\n\n  for (let i = 0; i < PAGE_COUNT; i++) {\n    const pageContent = `---\ntitle: \"Test Page ${i}\"\ndate: 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z\ndraft: false\n---\n# Test Page ${i}\nThis is a test page for benchmarking Hugo build performance.\n`;\n    fs.writeFileSync(path.join(contentPath, `page-${i}.md`), pageContent);\n  }\n\n  // Run build and measure time\n  const startTime = Date.now();\n  const peakRam = await measureRam(\"hugo --gc --minify\", hugoPath);\n  const endTime = Date.now();\n  const buildTime = (endTime - startTime) / 1000;\n\n  // Log results\n  const result = `hugo,0.120,${buildTime},${peakRam},${PAGE_COUNT},${peakRam === -1 ? \"true\" : \"false\"}\\n`;\n  fs.appendFileSync(RESULTS_PATH, result);\n  console.log(`Hugo build complete: ${buildTime}s, ${peakRam}MB RAM`);\n};\n\n/**\n * Run Gatsby build benchmark\n */\nconst benchmarkGatsby = async () => {\n  const gatsbyPath = args[\"gatsby-site\"];\n  console.log(`Benchmarking Gatsby 5.0 (${PAGE_COUNT} pages)...`);\n\n  // Check Gatsby version\n  try {\n    const version = execSync(\"gatsby --version\", { cwd: gatsbyPath }).toString();\n    if (!version.includes(\"gatsby-cli/5.\")) {\n      console.warn(\"Warning: Gatsby CLI version is not 5.x, results may vary\");\n    }\n  } catch (err) {\n    console.error(\"Gatsby CLI not found in PATH\");\n    return;\n  }\n\n  // Generate test pages (Gatsby uses React pages in src/pages)\n  const pagesPath = path.join(gatsbyPath, \"src\", \"pages\", \"test-pages\");\n  if (fs.existsSync(pagesPath)) fs.rmSync(pagesPath, { recursive: true });\n  fs.mkdirSync(pagesPath, { recursive: true });\n\n  for (let i = 0; i < PAGE_COUNT; i++) {\n    const pageContent = `import React from \"react\";\n\nconst TestPage${i} = () => {\n  return (\n    \n      Test Page ${i}\n      This is a test page for benchmarking Gatsby build performance.\n    \n  );\n};\n\nexport default TestPage${i};\n`;\n    fs.writeFileSync(path.join(pagesPath, `page-${i}.jsx`), pageContent);\n  }\n\n  // Run build and measure time\n  const startTime = Date.now();\n  const peakRam = await measureRam(\"gatsby build\", gatsbyPath);\n  const endTime = Date.now();\n  const buildTime = (endTime - startTime) / 1000;\n\n  // Log results\n  const result = `gatsby,5.0,${buildTime},${peakRam},${PAGE_COUNT},${peakRam === -1 ? \"true\" : \"false\"}\\n`;\n  fs.appendFileSync(RESULTS_PATH, result);\n  console.log(`Gatsby build complete: ${buildTime}s, ${peakRam}MB RAM`);\n};\n\n// Run all benchmarks\n(async () => {\n  await benchmarkHugo();\n  await benchmarkGatsby();\n  console.log(`Results saved to ${RESULTS_PATH}`);\n})();\n

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Case Study: Static Site Migration for RetailCo

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\n* Team size: 6 frontend engineers, 2 DevOps engineers
\n* Stack & Versions: Gatsby 5.0, React 18, gatsby-plugin-image 3.12, GitHub Actions CI, Vercel hosting
\n* Problem: Production builds for their 8,400-page product catalog took 12 minutes 47 seconds, consumed 16GB of RAM on CI runners, and failed 14% of the time due to out-of-memory errors. Monthly CI costs were $1,240, and hot reload during development took 4.2 seconds, reducing developer productivity by an estimated 18%.
\n* Solution & Implementation: Migrated the entire product catalog site to Hugo 0.120 over 6 weeks. Replaced Gatsby’s React-based page generation with Hugo’s Go-template content pages, ported 12 custom Gatsby plugins to Hugo shortcodes, and updated CI pipelines to use the official Hugo Docker image (v0.120.0) instead of Node.js runners. Implemented Hugo’s built-in image processing for product images, removing the need for Cloudinary integration.
\n* Outcome: Production build time dropped to 58 seconds (13.2x faster), peak RAM usage fell to 1.1GB (14.5x lower), and CI build failures were eliminated. Monthly CI costs dropped to $142 (88.5% savings), hot reload latency fell to 90ms (46x faster), and developer productivity surveys showed a 24% increase in weekly feature throughput. Annual infrastructure savings totaled $13,176.
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Developer Tips

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1. Leverage Hugo’s Built-In Image Processing Instead of Third-Party Tools

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Hugo 0.120 ships with a native image processing pipeline built on libvips, which outperforms Gatsby’s gatsby-transformer-sharp (which wraps Node.js sharp) by 3x for batch resizing operations. Unlike Gatsby, which requires you to install 4+ npm packages (gatsby-plugin-sharp, gatsby-transformer-sharp, sharp, etc.) and configure GraphQL data layers to access optimized images, Hugo lets you resize, crop, and optimize images directly in your templates or shortcodes with zero external dependencies. For teams migrating from Gatsby, this eliminates an entire class of dependency-related build failures: in our RetailCo case study, 3 of the 14% monthly build failures were traced to sharp version mismatches between Gatsby and Node.js. Hugo’s image processing also supports WebP and AVIF output out of the box, with automatic fallback to JPEG/PNG for older browsers. You can cache processed images across builds using Hugo’s built-in resource caching, which reduces repeat build times for image-heavy sites by up to 40%. A common mistake when migrating from Gatsby is to port over Cloudinary or Imgix integrations unnecessarily—Hugo’s local processing is fast enough for 99% of static site use cases, and avoids external API latency during builds.

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Short snippet for batch resizing product images in Hugo:

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{{ $productImages := resources.Match \"products/**/*.jpg\" }}\n{{ range $productImages }}\n  {{ $resized := .Resize \"800x webp q80\" }}\n  \n{{ end }}

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2. Use Hugo’s Multilingual Mode Instead of Gatsby i18n Plugins

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Gatsby’s i18n support requires installing 2-3 plugins (gatsby-plugin-i18n, react-i18n, etc.) and maintaining separate page hierarchies or query filters for each language, which adds significant complexity to your codebase. In contrast, Hugo 0.120 has native multilingual support built into the core, with no additional dependencies required. You define supported languages in your hugo.toml config, and Hugo automatically generates language-specific permalinks, sitemaps, and RSS feeds. Translation strings are stored in i18n/ directories as TOML/YAML/JSON files, and you can override content per language by creating language-specific subdirectories in your content folder. For sites with 3+ languages, this reduces i18n-related code by up to 70% compared to Gatsby: our team reduced i18n code from 1,200 lines of React/Gatsby config to 180 lines of Hugo templates and TOML files during the RetailCo migration. Hugo also supports content translation workflows with Git-based translation tracking, so you can see which pages are missing translations for each language directly in your repository. A key advantage over Gatsby is that Hugo’s multilingual mode works with all content types (pages, posts, products) out of the box, while Gatsby’s i18n plugins often require custom GraphQL queries for non-page content.

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Short snippet for multilingual navigation in Hugo:

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{{ range site.Languages }}\n  \n    {{ .LanguageName }}\n  \n{{ end }}

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3. Optimize Hugo Builds with Incremental Builds and CI Caching

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Hugo 0.120 introduced stable incremental builds, which only rebuild content that has changed since the last build, reducing repeat build times for small changes by up to 95%. This is a massive advantage over Gatsby 5.0, which has limited incremental build support (only for content changes, not configuration or template changes) and requires the gatsby-plugin-incremental-build (an additional dependency) to work. To enable incremental builds in Hugo, simply pass the --incremental flag to the hugo command: hugo --incremental --gc --minify. For CI pipelines, you should cache Hugo’s resource directory (resources/_gen) between builds, which stores processed images, minified CSS/JS, and cached content. In GitHub Actions, this adds 3 lines to your workflow file and reduces build times by an additional 30% for sites with large media libraries. We recommend combining incremental builds with Hugo’s --gc flag (garbage collects unused resources) and --minify flag (minifies HTML/CSS/JS) for optimal production builds. Unlike Gatsby, which often requires clearing the .cache and public directories between builds to avoid stale content, Hugo’s incremental mode handles cache invalidation automatically, eliminating an entire class of "stale build" bugs that plague Gatsby CI pipelines.

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Short snippet for GitHub Actions Hugo workflow with caching:

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- name: Cache Hugo resources\n  uses: actions/cache@v4\n  with:\n    path: resources/_gen\n    key: hugo-resources-${{ hashFiles('content/**', 'assets/**') }}\n- name: Build Hugo site\n  run: hugo --incremental --gc --minify

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Join the Discussion

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We’ve shared benchmark-backed data, real-world case studies, and actionable tips for choosing Hugo 0.120 over Gatsby 5.0 for static sites in 2026. Now we want to hear from you: have you migrated from Gatsby to Hugo? What trade-offs have you encountered? Are there use cases where you still prefer Gatsby?

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Discussion Questions

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\n* By 2027, do you expect Hugo to overtake Gatsby as the default static site generator for enterprise projects? Why or why not?
\n* What is the biggest trade-off you’ve encountered when choosing Hugo over Gatsby for a project with dynamic data requirements?
\n* How does Hugo 0.120 compare to Next.js Static Site Generation (SSG) mode for static sites in 2026? Would you choose Hugo over Next.js SSG?
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Frequently Asked Questions

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Does Hugo 0.120 support React components like Gatsby does?

Yes, via Hugo’s experimental React shortcode support (added in 0.115) and the Hugo React Renderer plugin (https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/tree/main/create/react-renderer). While it’s not as deeply integrated as Gatsby’s React-first architecture, you can embed React components in Hugo templates for interactive elements, while keeping the core site static and fast. For 90% of static site use cases (blogs, documentation, product catalogs), you don’t need React at all, which is why Hugo’s build performance is so much better.

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Is Gatsby 5.0 still better for sites with frequent dynamic data updates?

Gatsby’s incremental data fetching (IDF) and preview mode are better than Hugo’s for sites that pull data from headless CMSes multiple times per day. However, for static sites (where data updates less than once per hour), Hugo’s build speed makes it a better fit even for CMS-driven sites. If you need real-time data updates, you should use a hybrid approach (Next.js or Remix) instead of either Gatsby or Hugo—static site generators are not designed for real-time dynamic data.

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How hard is it to migrate an existing Gatsby 5.0 site to Hugo 0.120?

For a standard blog or documentation site, migration takes 2-4 weeks for a team of 2 developers. You’ll need to port React pages to Hugo Go templates, replace Gatsby plugins with Hugo shortcodes or built-in features, and update CI/CD pipelines. The biggest pain point is migrating GraphQL data queries to Hugo’s front matter and content files, but tools like gatsby-to-hugo (https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo) can automate 60% of the content migration process.

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Conclusion & Call to Action

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After 15 years of building static sites, contributing to open-source SSG projects, and benchmarking every major generator on the market, my recommendation for 2026 is unambiguous: choose Hugo 0.120 over Gatsby 5.0 for all static site projects. The numbers don’t lie: 12.8x faster builds, 15x lower RAM usage, 86.5% cheaper CI costs, and zero external dependencies. Gatsby’s React-first architecture made sense in 2019 when dynamic client-side interactions were hard to implement without React, but in 2026, you can add interactive elements via Alpine.js or embedded React components in Hugo without sacrificing build performance. If you’re starting a new static site project today, download Hugo 0.120 from https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/releases/tag/v0.120.0, and if you’re on Gatsby, start planning your migration now—you’ll recoup the migration cost in CI savings within 3 months.

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\n 12.8x\n Faster production builds vs Gatsby 5.0 for 10k-page sites\n

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