Eleventy is a simpler static site generator. #
Eleventy was created to be a JavaScript alternative to Jekyll. It’s zero-config by default but has flexible configuration options. Eleventy works with your project’s existing directory structure.
Eleventy uses independent template engines. We don’t want to hold your content hostage. If you decide to use something else later, having your content decoupled in this way will make migration easier.
Eleventy works with multiple template languages. You can pick one or use them all together in a single project:
- HTML
*.html
- Markdown
*.md
- JavaScript
*.11ty.js
- Liquid
*.liquid
- Nunjucks
*.njk
- Handlebars
*.hbs
- Mustache
*.mustache
- EJS
*.ejs
- Haml
*.haml
- Pug
*.pug
- Custom
*.*
Eleventy is not a JavaScript framework—that means zero boilerplate client-side JavaScript. We’re thinking long term and opting out of the framework rat race. The tool chain, code conventions, and modules you use in your front end stack are decoupled from this tool. Work from a solid foundation of pre-rendered templates that suit your project’s progressive enhancement baseline requirements.
Eleventy is incremental. You don’t need to start an Eleventy project from scratch. Eleventy is flexible enough to allow conversion of only a few templates at a time. Migrate as fast or as slow as you’d like.
Eleventy works great with data—use both front matter and external data files to inject content into templates.
Read more about Eleventy’s project goals.
➡ Keep going! Read Getting Started.
Don’t just take my word for it 🌈 #
There are a bunch of sites built using Eleventy. But listen to what these happy developers are saying about Eleventy:
“Eleventy is absolutely wonderful. It’s by far the nicest static site generator I’ve used in what feels like forever.” —Addy Osmani
“Think the reason everyone is loving [Eleventy] so much (myself included) is that it doesn't come with a prescription about data sources or template rendering.” —Brian Leroux
“Seriously can't remember enjoying using a Static Site Generator this much. Yes Hugo is rapid, but this is all so logical. It feels like it was designed by someone who has been through lots of pain and success using other SSGs.” —Phil Hawksworth
“I actually used Eleventy for the first time this week. Loved it.” —Paul Lewis
Read the replies to: “Fans of Eleventy.... why do you like it better than other static site generators?”
“I heard Eleventy was good” —Lach Zeatherman
“Eleventy + Netlify have become my new workflow for static sites. I think I'm in love.” —Mina Markham
“Eleventy is my fave.” —Tatiana Mac
“Eleventy is almost fascinatingly simple.” —Chris Coyier
“Eleventy is a killer static site generator. That’s all.” —Sara Soueidan
“Just the kind of simple / common sense tool I love. The data/folder hierarchy mechanism is super obvious and elegant.” —Heydon Pickering
“Don’t tell Zach I said it but Eleventy is seeming fresh as hell so far” —Mat Marquis
“I looked into and actively tried using various static site generators for this project. Eleventy was the only one I could find that gave me the fine-grained control I needed at blazingly fast build times.” —Mathias Bynens
“Jekyll is dead to me” —Andy Bell
“Eleventy and web components go really, really well together.” —Justin Fagnani
Competitors #
This project aims to directly compete with all other Static Site Generators. We encourage you to try out our competition:
- Jekyll (Ruby)
- Hugo (Go)
- Hexo (JavaScript)
- Gatsby (JavaScript using React)
- Nuxt (JavaScript using Vue)
- Next.js (JavaScript using React)
- More at jamstack.org