Let’s see how to optimize Hugo size binary as small as possible.

About Go Optimization

Optimizing the sizes of Hugo binary may useful for saving your storage, especially if you keep this on a remote server. There are several articles mentioned that go binary can be optimized as small as possible. According to the filippo.io, we can use the -s and -w linker flags to strip the debugging and save almost 28% of sizes. Petr Jahoda via itnext.io also mentioned that using UPX with --best --lzma parameter will reduce about 21% of the original size.

Based on those articles, we can apply it to optimize Hugo binary and save more sizes. Take a look into my tweet below:

It's quite impressive, building @GoHugoIO binary with -ldflags='-s -w' and compress it again with upx --best --lzma will save almost 85% from it's original sizes.

*P.S
> Without ldflags = 87701712 bytes
> With ldflags = 56431832 bytes
> With upx = 12754976 bytes#linux #golang pic.twitter.com/lS89TNkHS3

— khusika (@khusikadev) May 7, 2023

Install Required Packages

1. First of all, these are required packages to build Hugo binary:

• GoLang
• UPX

2. Install required packages

   a. Setup GoLang

   1	wget https://go.dev/dl/go1.24.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz && sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf go1.24.0.linux-amd64.tar.gz

   b. Setup UPX

   1	wget https://github.com/upx/upx/releases/download/v5.0.0/upx-5.0.0-amd64_linux.tar.xz && sudo tar -C /usr/local -xf upx-5.0.0-amd64_linux.tar.xz --transform 's/upx-5.0.0-amd64_linux/upx/'

3. Add all environment into .profile

   1 2 3

   export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/go/bin export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/upx

Build Hugo Binary

1. Download latest Hugo source

   1	git clone https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo -b master && cd hugo

2. Export all required go environment

   1	export CGO_ENABLED="1"

3. Build go binary with -s and -w linker flags

   1	go install -ldflags="-s -w" --tags extended

4. Optimize Hugo binary with upx

   1	upx --best --lzma "$HOME/go/bin/hugo"

Tips

If you want instant build, you can use my script below:

1

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/khusika/khusika.github.io/master/build && ./build

The output file will be in the bin/$(go env GOARCH)/hugo.