Eleventy is a static site generator that's getting a lot more attention around the web lately. If you've tried it or considered trying it:
- Anything you're unsure about or wondering if it can do?
- Did you start an Eleventy project and get stuck on something?
Fine print: I'm the author of 11ty.Rocks so your responses may be used to help inform the creation of future resources 😉 I'd love to try to answer some of your questions in the comments, too!
Oldest comments (33)
Nothing. 11ty is super nice, I'm using it after the heavier Gatsby.
The only (small) problem is the lack of nice themes built on top, but pretty sure this gap will be filled in the next months.
P.S. 11ty.Rocks looks cool.
I've heard good things about it. I would use it if I understood what static site generators are.
If you have ever used Gulp or Grunt, you may find it fills a similar need, except even further simplifying the build process. It includes BrowserSync out of the box to give you hot-reload of your local server on file save. For a definition, I think the 11ty docs actually provide a great overview of static sites, as well as the related term "Jamstack" and some other terms involved in the static process.
Nothing. 😉The same goes for all of these 😂😂
It's definitely on my list for 2021!
Just waiting for an opportunity and some spare time. 👍
If you have 20 mins, you can get started with my egghead video course 😉
Nice! I'll go for it 😄
My familiarity with react and jsx has me lean towards things like next js or gatsby, but 11ty is on my radar, i do want to try it in the future.
I found 11ty after two years with React and Gatsby and was able to re-use a lot of my mental models and mold 11ty to fit my preferred organization pattern, which I appreciated vs. Gatsby. It also doesn't rely on plugins, but gives you full flexibility to create your own functionality using anything from packages or hand-rolled JS 🙌🏽
I'm using Gridsome now but considering I've been having unexpected issues with running it locally I have considered an alternative to my site. It's just a matter of time really. Plus, I'd probably need to create my own theme.
I use a different static site generator in my workflow and don't see a need to change.
I've used it before for some small projects, and I wouldn't use it again because of how hard it is to use tools like bundlers.
That being said, I love almost every part of it, but still I like to use bundlers.
I recently used this starter that includes Parcel and it was a brilliant experience and provided exactly what I wanted out of a bundler alongside Eleventy:
eleventy-parcel starter on GitHub
If you're interested in what it was used for, it was to create my web app ButtonBuddy.dev
I have been using Gatsby mostly.. What would you say is a good reason to go for 11ty instead?
For me, simplicity is a big selling point. Gatsby is great, but plenty of sites don’t need that level of complexity.
11ty is also especially good if you have a range of experience levels in your dev team. Even relatively junior front end devs will be able to get their heads around 11ty much more easily than Gatsby.
If your output doesn't actually require features of React or if you do not need JavaScript (or minimally) then Eleventy is a great alternative. You can still write your files in Markdown or JavaScript, and you can organize your project similar to how you'd organize it for Gatsby. But Eleventy doesn't have the plugin dependency, you can start running it with no more than an index file using one of the 11 templating languages.
are there any "How to Build an 11ty Theme tutorials" on the web?
"Themes" aren't a foundational part of Eleventy like you might be familiar with for WordPress or Gatsby. With 11 languages to choose from, and being zero-config, there are a lot of opinions on how to put together an Eleventy project - you can customize it to precisely what you want! I have a written tutorial and a video tutorial available to help you get started on 11ty.Rocks. I'd also recommend Andy Bell's Learn Eleventy From Scratch (paid) course.
Thanks Stephanie. Your 11ty.Rocks website is AWESOME!