Deploying Hugo Sites: A Complete Guide

Introduction

Once you’ve built your Hugo site, the next step is deploying it to make it accessible to the world. This guide covers various deployment options and best practices.

Popular Deployment Platforms

1. Netlify

Netlify offers a seamless deployment experience:

terminal

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# Create netlify.toml
[build]
  publish = "public"
  command = "hugo --gc --minify"

[build.environment]
  HUGO_VERSION = "0.95.0"

2. Vercel

Vercel provides excellent performance and analytics.

3. GitHub Pages

Perfect for project sites and personal blogs:

github-workflow.yml

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name: GitHub Pages

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main

jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Setup Hugo
        uses: peaceiris/actions-hugo@v2

Deployment Best Practices

Use Version Control
- Track your changes
- Collaborate effectively
- Enable automated deployments
Optimize Assets
- Compress images
- Minify CSS/JS
- Enable caching
Configure CI/CD
- Automate builds
- Run tests
- Deploy automatically