Why should you use Eleventy?

Stable, secure, privacy-focused

We’ve shipped 228 releases of core going back to the first version in December 2017 and only three of those releases have had Eleventy-specific changes requiring developer changes. Read more about Eleventy’s stability.

a11yproject.com launched with version 1.0.0 of Eleventy. […] It's been a little under three years and I haven't had to make any adjustments to its dependencies, and it can still install and run from a cold start with no complications. When I update the site to use version 2.0.0 I'll actually be removing dependencies, and not adding more. […] That's rare and special.— Eric Bailey

There have been zero security advisories filed against all 896 releases of our 48 official npm packages.

We strive to reduce dependencies and keep our dependencies updated and audit free: compare npm audit results in the Prototype Pollution Report.

We don’t have or use telemetry nor require you to opt-out of data collection.

Production ready

Eleventy is trusted by:

Eleventy is used on 88,000+ repositories on GitHub.

Fast builds

Eleventy offers best-in-class build performance for JavaScript site generators. Data taken from Which Generator Builds Markdown the Fastest? (July 2022).

Full control means fast sites

We don’t inject our own markup into your pages.

Sites are fast because you keep full control over the output: we add no runtime JavaScript bundle of our own. Sites on the Eleventy Leaderboards are tested and ranked about monthly—you can add your site to them. Building a single page application instead?

• Add your site to the Leaderboards (Weekly №6)

No JavaScript framework required

Eleventy doesn’t require a JavaScript framework—that means zero client-side JavaScript by default across the board. We’re thinking long-term to opt-out of the framework rat race. The tool chain, modules, and components 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.

Any directory structure

The tool doesn’t require an app directory or a pages directory. Use the structure that you want.

Incremental adoption

We only look for the files and directories you specify. Further, with even more precision you can opt-out or ignore specific files in your project. 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.

Independent template languages

Every one of these is a syntax that stands on its own. You can pick one or use them all together in a single project:

• HTML *.html
• Markdown *.md
• WebC *.webc
• JavaScript *.11ty.js
• Liquid *.liquid
• Nunjucks *.njk
• Handlebars *.hbs
• Mustache *.mustache
• EJS *.ejs
• Haml *.haml
• Pug *.pug
• TypeScript *.ts
• JSX *.jsx
• MDX *.mdx
• Sass *.scss
• Custom *.*

We don’t want to hold your content hostage with a custom format. If you decide to use a different syntax later, having your content decoupled in this way will make migration easier.

A lovely community

Eleventy has a lovely community of folks that really care about what they build. Listen to what these happy developers are saying about Eleventy:

…and many more!

Fast installs

Don’t get stuck waiting for installation! Data taken from The JavaScript Site Generator Review, 2023 (February 2023).

• 28% build time performance improvement for Google’s web.dev (Weekly №1) ▶0m30s
• Eleventy Build went from 54s to 17s—Pagination Memory/Performance Wins 🏆 (Weekly №10) ▶5m44s
• Markdown Benchmarks (Weekly №16) ▶26m6s

Get started with Eleventy today! or read more about Eleventy’s project goals.

Other pages in Home

• Why Eleventy?
• Get Started
• Playground
• Learn
  • Glossary
  • Opening a Terminal
  • Installing JavaScript
  • CommonJS, ESM, TypeScript
• Tutorials
• Starter Projects