Let's Learn Eleventy

For the past couple of weeks I have been exploring Static Site Generators (SSG) in an effort to see what exactly I need that is specific to Next.js and what can be accomplished with just HTML and some CSS. Also to see how much client side javascript is actually necessary.

To that effect, I started investigating Eleventy. On my quest, I have been going through several tutorials and the documentation.

The problem is:

1. The documentation, like the Next.js one, assumes knowledge of things.
2. A number of the tutorials I came across just stop midway.

So, I'm making my own. We are going to be starting from scratch, exploring what Eleventy can do, deploying it and adding styling.

Let's begin shall we?

What is Eleventy?

Eleventy is static site generator that is able to mix template languages. Content can be written with Markdown or one of the other ten template languages. Or, dynamically create pages from local data or external sources that are compiled at build time. It has zero client-side JavaScript dependencies, so your site is truly static.

What They Say

Eleventy, a simpler static site generator.

Well that's all for now. I'll be back with the next one as we begin...

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Comments

[Renan Franca]

Thank you for sharing ❤

I am seeing Eleventy word in everywhere! I didn't know what it is until now.

I am using and enjoying Jekyll in my blog renanfranca.github.io/

I am curious to know what's the difference and of eleventy is better! Do you think eleventy is better than jekyll?

[James 'Dante' Midzi]

You are most welcome. Thank you for reading.

Let me check your site out. Here is mine currently mrmidzi.netlify.app/ in Eleventy

Uhmm, apart from Jekyll being written in Ruby and Eleventy in javascript, I wouldn't be sure. I also personally don't look at tech in terms of better than - it's all a matter of preference.

And having never used jekyll I can't give you a clear cut answer right now... I'll probably explore jekyll after this series :)

[Renan Franca]

Thank you for the feedback! ❤️

[Renan Franca]

I saw your website now! Awesome, it's like a rpg player sheet 😆

Eleventy made with Javascript it's a good point! You can host it for free like I do on github.com?

[James 'Dante' Midzi]

Thank you.

Yes, you can! Because thinking about it, I would actually say Eleventy is a build tool. It generates your site files and you can serve them wherever you want

[James 'Dante' Midzi]

Thank you

[James 'Dante' Midzi]

Are you requesting an article on setting that up?