Migrated this blog to Eleventy: back to basics
I have been using Next.js, a React static site generator, to generate this blog. However, my frustration has been growing lately:
- With the number of posts approaching 100, build times were getting longer. If I wanted to check the blog before/after publishing, I had to wait for some time, which started to feel cumbersome.
- Also, I wasn't confident in the routing functionality of Next.js. I've noticed on a few occasions that local links didn't work as expected. I thought I misconfigured something.
I was deciding how to go about these problems. Shall I invest time and dive into fixing these issues within Next.js? I then realized that all I need is a bunch of interlinked HTML pages with no javascript on top of them, and that I've been using a hammer in form of Next.js to achieve that.
Then I stumbled upon Eleventy. Eleventy is a Javascript-based static-site generator that promises super-fast build times, generating vanilla HTML and CSS, and with no Javascript. As I currently don't see a use-case for Javascript on either the client or server side of the blog, the generator looked intriguing. Also, it is boring. What finally convinced me was taking a look at Eleventy's homepage. The homepage is generated with Eleventy and shows how far its capabilities go. That'll do for my simple site, I thought.
So, I decided to migrate.
The migration was quick and straightforward. I used this boilerplate as a starting point. It turns out that the boilerplate—and Eleventy—comes with some features out of the box that I long wanted to add to my blog, namely tags, next and previous links, and RSS. That was a pleasant surprise.
All in all, the experience with Eleventy has been pleasant so far, and I'm glad for the switch.
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This blog is written by Marcel Krcah, an independent consultant for product-oriented software engineering. If you like what you read, sign up for my newsletter