From Nuxt to Hugo

Situation

I had wanted to use Hugo for a while, and when it came time to move my Nuxt 2 site forward I chose to migrate instead of upgrading to Nuxt 3. Nuxt excels at dynamic Vue apps, but this project is a content-first site. Hugo’s static build pipeline, multi-language support, and minimal runtime footprint were a much better fit.

Solution

1. Map the objectives
   • Audit what Nuxt is doing for you: data fetching, dynamic routes, plugins, and middleware.
   • Decide what can become pre-generated content versus what still needs runtime logic.
2. Move the content first
   • Export Markdown from the Nuxt Content module (or your CMS) and drop it into Hugo’s content/ tree.
   • Translate front matter into TOML/YAML front matter so Hugo can read titles, dates, and taxonomies.
3. Recreate layouts intentionally
   • Identify Nuxt layouts and Vue components that map to Hugo templates or partials.
   • Rebuild only what adds value; Hugo’s Go templates often need fewer abstractions.
4. Replace dynamic features
   • For features like search, consider Hugo’s JSON outputs plus a lightweight client-side index.
   • For forms or comments, integrate external services or serverless functions instead of writing Vue logic.
5. Tighten the build & deploy loop
   • hugo server -D gives fast local previews; hugo --gc --minify mirrors production.
   • Deployment shrinks to uploading the public/ folder or letting Netlify handle it.

It’s not DNS
It cannot be DNS
It was DNS

Good luck with your migration! If you hit a snag, it’s probably DNS—check it anyway.