Zach’s ugly mug (his face) Zach Leat­herman

Why Are There So Many Static Site Generators

Blog posts and tutorials for the Build Awesome (née Eleventy/11ty) website generator. You can read more at the Eleventy Blog. This very website you’re reading now is generated using Build Awesome.

    1. 2026

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    2. Back Build Awesome Pro and make it easier to build for the web!
    3. Collaborative Editing as Progressive Enhancement
    4. AMA about Build Awesome, an Open Town Hall at the 11ty Meetup IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.11tymeetup.dev/ 44 min
    5. Eleventy is now Build Awesome
    6. How Eleventy Survived: Funding, Growth, and Open Source Reality IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.podcastawesome.com/2092855/episodes/18615318-how-eleventy-survived-funding-growth-and-open-source-reality 29 min
    7. Eleventy, 2025 in Review

    1. 2025

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    2. No more tokens! Locking down npm Publish Workflows #163k 34
    3. How we use GitHub Issues (on 11ty) and how that’s Changing
    4. Copy *and* Paste? …in this Economy? 5
    5. Permanent Facepile Credit to Individuals Supporting Eleventy 47
    6. Wrapper Elements around Code Blocks in Markdown 12
    7. How We Built Web Awesome with 11ty (and Why It’s So Fast) IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.podcastawesome.com/2092855/episodes/17268471-how-we-built-web-awesome-with-11ty-and-why-it-s-so-fast 35 min
    8. A note from my late Grandmother about Eleventy 1k 29
    9. One weird trick to reduce Eleventy Image Build Times by 60% 17
    10. Never write your own Date Parsing Library #415k 2951
    11. Check the speedometer on the brand new Blog Awesome (now with 11ty) IndieWeb Avatar for https://blog.fontawesome.com/blog-awesome-to-11ty/
    12. Blog Awesome from WordPress to Eleventy (at Eleventy Meetup)Meetup Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.11tymeetup.dev/ 27 min 5
    13. Eleventy, 2024 in Review

    1. 2024

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    2. Nerd Show and Tell on Podcast Awesome IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.podcastawesome.com/2092855/episodes/16065652-nerd-show-and-tell-meet-zach-leatherman 30 min
    3. The Best And Worst Parts Of Eleventy (Now In v3)—Web Unleashed 2024Conf Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://fitc.ca/ 6
    4. Speaking at: Web Unleashed (2024) IndieWeb Avatar for https://fitc.ca/presentation/the-best-and-worst-parts-of-eleventy-now-in-v3/ 1
    5. Eleventy v3.0.0 is now available! IndieWeb Avatar for https://github.com/11ty/eleventy/releases/tag/v3.0.0 1
    6. Open Source Needs to be Financially Symbiotic 2k 2125
    7. 11ty is Joining Font Awesome 1
    8. The Sneaky Costs of Scaling Serverless 5k 2233
    9. Eleventy v3.0.0-beta.1 is now available! IndieWeb Avatar for https://github.com/11ty/eleventy/releases/tag/v3.0.0-beta.1
    10. Improved error messaging for require(ESM) in Node.js 4
    11. 11ty Goes Fully Independent—JS Party #325 IndieWeb Avatar for https://changelog.com/jsparty/325 75 min 10
    12. I Need Your Help to Make 11ty Fully Independent and Sustainable in 2024 6k 178
    13. The Future of 11ty (2024)Conf Talk 31 min 10
    14. An Organizer’s Retrospective on the 11ty Conference 15
    15. 11ty Conference is this week!
    16. Glitch Jams Live 🍓🎏 Ep. 16: Eleventy'ing IndieWeb Avatar for https://glitch.com/ 75 min 1
    17. Get your 11ty Conference 2024 Merch Bundle (Limited Edition) IndieWeb Avatar for https://merch.11ty.dev/products/11ty-merch-bundle-2024-limited-edition
    18. Eight Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    19. Lessons learned moving Eleventy from CommonJS to ESMConf Talk 45 min 13
    20. The Good, The Bad, The Web Components 8k 23
    21. Exploring the Bounds of Jamstack on What the Jam 29 min 1

    1. 2023

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    2. Building a multi-language Taylor Swift fan site (10 Minute Version) (Zach's Version) 10 min 7
    3. Netlify’s Disingenuous Survey-based Attack on Next.js (and Eleventy, too) 5k 42
    4. Eleventy v3 with ESM support now on the canary channel
    5. Live Editing an Eleventy Project in CloudCannon with Bookshop IndieWeb Avatar for https://cloudcannon.com/ 9 min
    6. Static Feedback #11: All about Eleventy 37 min
    7. A new Eleventy mascot from David Neal! 1
    8. Seven Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    9. Educational, Sensational, Inspirational, Foundational Web Development Reading List IndieWeb Avatar for https://esif.dev/ 15 min 2
    10. Eleventy and CloudCannon: New Best Friends IndieWeb Avatar for https://cloudcannon.com/ 2 min 6
    11. Six Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    12. The Next Phase of Eleventy: Return of the Side Project 4k 108
    13. Defaulting on Single Page Applications (SPA) #2010k 58
    14. The Eleventy v2.0 Release, a talk at the Eleventy MeetupMeetup Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://11tymeetup.dev/events/ep-12-configs-and-v2/ 21 min 9
    15. Celebrating Eleventy 2.0 🎉—JS Party #266 IndieWeb Avatar for https://changelog.com/jsparty/266
    16. Five Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    17. GitHub’s Open Source Friday: WebC, The Web Components Framework 49 min 1
    18. The Magical Eleventy v2.0 Beta Release 14

    1. 2022

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    2. Shop Talk Show #593: Zach Leatherman on Eleventy, Mastodon, Twitter, and is-land IndieWeb Avatar for https://shoptalkshow.com/543/ 59 min 20
    3. Jamstack Community Survey 2022 Results 1
    4. The State of Eleventy (2022) in Two Minutes 2 min 2
    5. A simple plea for Eleventy folks to take the 2022 State of JavaScript Survey 1
    6. OSS is Out to End the Framework Wars—Jamstack Conf 2022 20
    7. FITC Panel: Front-End Framework Trends with the creators of Qwik, Astro, and Eleventy 57 min
    8. Kelvin Omereshone’s TKYT: Eleventy and WebC 73 min
    9. Nick Taylor’s livecoding.ca: WebC is neat! 88 min
    10. Adding Components to Eleventy with WebCMeetup Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://11tymeetup.dev/events/ep-11-webc-with-zach/3k 23
    11. Four Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    12. Ryan Carniato: Exploring 11ty with Zach Leatherman 150 min 2
    13. PodRocket podcast: Eleventy with Zach Leatherman IndieWeb Avatar for https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/eleventy-with-zach-leatherman/id1539945251?i=1000564676022 27 min
    14. Three Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    15. Eleventy: Build vs. Serverless vs. EdgeMeetup Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://11tymeetup.dev/events/ep-8-state-of-the-possumverse-and-panel-on-transitioning-to-11ty/ 21 min2k 7
    16. Coding Design Systems episode 11: Design Systems with 11ty 53 min
    17. Going full-time on Eleventy—JS Party #217 IndieWeb Avatar for https://changelog.com/jsparty/217 58 min
    18. Full Time Open Source Development for Eleventy, sponsored by Netlify 2 min 3
    19. Eleventy v1.0.0, the stable release. IndieWeb Avatar for https://github.com/11ty/eleventy/releases/tag/v1.0.0 7

    1. 2021

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    2. The Eleventy API Explorer IndieWeb Avatar for https://api-explorer.11ty.dev/ 3
    3. Mix and Match Template Syntax in Eleventy using the Render Plugin
    4. How to add Authentication to your Eleventy Site 7 min2k 7
    5. Recycling Open Graph Images for display on my Web Site 2k 56
    6. A New Eleventy Mascot from Geri Coady
    7. The State of Eleventy (2021) in Two Minutes 2 min 3
    8. The 11ties: 11 Minute Talks about 11ty on 11/11 IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.meetup.com/JAMstack-Toronto/events/281278073/
    9. Shout out to Jamstack Conf 2021 Jammies Award Winners
    10. The Very First Eleventy 1.0 Beta Release 3
    11. Jamstack Community Survey 2021 Results
    12. IndieWeb Avatar, yet another Eleventy Image Service API 3k 14
    13. Every Fire Needs a Sparkline 2k 1
    14. Two Million npm Downloads for Eleventy
    15. Building an Automated Screenshot Service on Netlify in ~140 Lines of Code 5k 12
    16. Uniclode: yet another demo of Eleventy Serverless 5
    17. Eleventy Serverless, a talk video from EleventyMeetup’s AvatarThe Eleventy MeetupMeetup Talk IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.11tymeetup.dev/ 43 min
    18. Rainglow: a demo of Eleventy Serverless 6
    19. Speaking at: Inaugural EleventyMeetup’s AvatarEleventy Meetup: Hello World (a talk about Eleventy Serverless) IndieWeb Avatar for https://11tymeetup.dev/events/hello-world/
    20. Some Antics with BenDMyers’s AvatarBen Myers: A First Look at Eleventy Serverless! 73 min 4
    21. Eleventy Serverless (Eleventy Cloud) Thus Far 2k 15
    22. Defer generating 400+ pages using Eleventy Cloud and On-demand Builders 8 min 8
    23. How and Why I Removed 3000 Images from the Eleventy Docs Build 4 min
    24. Powering Netlify’s Community Events with Structured Content (and a preview of Eleventy Cloud) 23 min 2
    25. Content is Data—Sanity Open House IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.sanity.io/content-is-data-open-house-2021
    26. Image Ready v2—Developer Experience @ EleventyMeetup Talk 22 min 25
    27. Queue Code—“Live” Code without Errors 14
    28. Join the Eleventy Super Professional Business Network
    29. Jamstack 101: Getting Started with Eleventy, presented by agilitycms’s AvatarAgility CMS 73 min
    30. Don’t Shut Down Your Business! Instead Use Eleventy Image 8k 22
    31. Speaking at: JAMstackTORONTO’s AvatarJamstack Toronto IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.meetup.com/JAMstack-Toronto/events/275601729/

    1. 2020

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    2. The State of Eleventy (2020) in Two Minutes 2 min
    3. Eleventy Leaderboards v2 via speedlify’s AvatarSpeedlify 1k 15
    4. Eleventy’s New Performance Leaderboard 2k 16
    5. Eleventy Crash Course with Nick and Zach—NebraskaJS OmahaMeetup Talk 63 min
    6. Let’s Learn Eleventy! on LWJShow’s AvatarLearn with Jason 92 min
    7. Speaking at: Eleventy Crash Course with Nick and Zach—NebraskaJS Omaha IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.meetup.com/nebraskajs/events/dxndfdybccbkb/

    1. 2019

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    2. Building Exclusive Features For Open Collective Contributors on Netlify IndieWeb Avatar for https://netlify.com/ 7
    3. Shop Talk Show #390: Eleventy with Zach Leatherman IndieWeb Avatar for https://shoptalkshow.com/episodes/390/ 62 min
    4. Eleventy Documentation has moved to 11ty.dev
    5. A Featherweight Facepile 1k 10
    6. Spicy fonts and static sites 🌶️—JS Party #79 IndieWeb Avatar for https://changelog.com/jsparty/79 67 min
    7. Render Snarky Comments in Comic Sans 4k 67
    8. Eleventy Quick Tip №8: Trigger a Netlify Build Every Day with IFTTT
    9. Eleventy Quick Tip №7: Fetch GitHub Stargazers Count (and More) at Build Time
    10. Build your own Blog from Scratch using Eleventy IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.filamentgroup.com/lab/build-a-blog/

    1. 2018

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    2. Happy Birthday Eleventy! 🎉 1k5
    3. The Simplest Web Site That Could Possibly Work Well 4k
    4. Import your Disqus Comments to Eleventy 2
    5. Google Open Source Award for Eleventy IndieWeb Avatar for https://www.google.com/
    6. Introducing Eleventy, a new Static Site Generator 15k 4
    7. Making a Simple Web Site with the Simplest Static Site Generator, Level 2—Adding Filters 18k 1
    8. Making a Simple Web Site with the Simplest Static Site Generator, Level 1 44k 1