Comment by WorldMaker

Most of them bend to your will very easily if you are the one writing the HTML and not trying to use an existing template/theme. Even Jekyll the "themes" are optional and you can entirely ignore them.

Also most of the complexity disappears if you aren't trying to make a blog. They generally all have "simple pages" support that is much simpler than trying to figure out their blog mechanics.

Of course the hard part is picking an SSG you like, and it is easier to just build your own which is a big part of why SSG proliferation happens. Too many options? Make a new one.

My main sites are still in Jekyll for now, for historic reasons of GitHub Pages support.

My latest discovery and new love in this space is Lume [0]. It's definitely on the simpler side of the scale. I haven't tried it for a full blog yet, but the simple website I have built with it has indeed continued to feel simple throughout the process and even using some of the features Lume's documentation labels "Advanced".

[0] https://lume.land/