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Eleventy (11ty) is a lightweight, easily configurable static site generator for developers. It supports multiple templating languages, produces performant static output, and integrates seamlessly with CDNs and hosting platforms (e.g., Netlify, Vercel). Well suited for blogs, documentation and other content-driven sites.
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Eleventy is a static site generator that turns templates, data, and content files into static HTML pages at build time while allowing multiple template languages side by side.
Eleventy was created in 2017 by Zach Leatherman as a JavaScript-based alternative to Jekyll. The practical goal was a lightweight, easy-to-configure generator for static websites that supports many template languages and does not force a front-end framework. The project later moved to Font Awesome; its core idea stayed the same: a static-first build tool for content-heavy sites.
Think of Eleventy as a web build pipeline: input files from Markdown, HTML, or other templates are combined with front-matter, file, and global data, organized through layouts and collections, and translated into finished files during the build. The output lands in a target folder and can be served directly through hosting or a CDN. You choose the syntax, structure, and scope.
Pages are produced as files at build time instead of being rendered again on every request.
Markdown, Liquid, Nunjucks, HTML, and other syntaxes can be used alone or together.
Front matter, global data, and file data are merged into a shared information base for rendering.
Reusable page frames and content lists help generate many pages consistently.
The output fits CDN, object storage, or edge platforms because no server-side rendering is required.
Existing directory structures and individual files can be brought in gradually instead of migrating everything at once.
Eleventy is a strong fit for blogs, documentation, and other content-driven sites where fast delivery and low runtime complexity matter. It works especially well with static hosting and with projects that already use Markdown and templates. Limits appear when heavy runtime logic, deep personalization, or a single front-end framework are central requirements. Multiple template languages increase flexibility, but they also need clear conventions.
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