Static site generator is a software that takes some text + templates as input and produces html files on the output. A picture:
┌──────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌─────────────┐ ** │ text │ + │ templates │ = │ .html files │ └──────┘ └───────────┘ └─────────────┘
Generated site can be blog, game list, interactive demo or anything else.
Static site generators written in Python
VenC - Markdown/Yaml static blog generator with multiple columns layout support. Aim to be light and easy to use. License is GNU/GPLv3
Clay - Jinja2 for easy site prototyping, MIT.
Complexity - A refreshingly simple static site generator, for those who like to work in HTML.
Cyrax - poetic Jinja2 engine, used for osgameclones.
html2text - useful tool to convert HTML into Markdown.
Mynt - Static website generator based on Markdown and Jinja2. BSD-3.
Nikola - Generator supporting reST, Markdown, IPyNB et al.; using Mako and Jinja2 for templates; supports multilingual sites, galleries, RSS feeds, DISQUS et al. for comments. Incremental builds. MIT license.
Obraz - Static blog-aware site generator mostly compatible with Jekyll, MIT
Poole - static website generator, Markdown. GPL.
Pelican - Uses Markdown or ReST for content and Jinja 2 for themes. Supports DVCS, Disqus. AGPL.
PubTal - Templating#SimpleTAL-based static site generator, BSD-3
rest2web - Generates Websites from ReST contents, BSD
Sphinx - Python's official documentation system that turns ReST into HTML, LaTeX, man pages, plaintext, and has many features for making site trees, inter-linking, and other documentation necessities (Jinja2 as default template engine). BSD.
staticninja - MIT, Jinja2, auto-compile. That simple.
https://github.com/vladris/tinkerer - blogging engine/static website generator powered by Sphinx with polite-correct license list.
Urubu - A micro CMS for static websites, with a focus on good navigation practices. AGPL.
These are outdated, but worth mentioning:
https://www.nthwave.net/elements - powerful tool for experienced web developers from the year 2002, requires at least Python 2.2
See also static blog generators.
Dead links for software archaeologists
The following links have been moved from the section above for the reasons shown in in parentheses.
Blogofile - (Mako, Jinja2)-based generator with supports for (reStructuredText, Markdown, Textile), Git, Disqus, RSS feeds, plugins, and S3, very nice license with human touch. (Site no longer responds).
Crotal - (Jinja2)-A static site generator written in Python, using Jinja2 template engine, BSD (No DNS records).
wok - MIT licensed, Jinja2, Markdown, reST, etc. (Site has no HTTPS support).
** ASCII diagram was drawn with Far Manager