Eleventy vs Nikola
Eleventy
11ty.dev
Nikola
getnikola.comSide by side
| Figure | Eleventy | Nikola |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Static site generators | 8.9 (#2) | 8.8 (#4) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| License | The official documentation repository is marked as MIT licensed. | Nikola is released under the MIT license, while some bundled or required components use other licenses. |
| Runtime | Eleventy recommends Node.js version 18 or newer. | Nikola is written in Python 3 and the homepage lists Python 3.8 or later. |
| What it does | Eleventy is a simpler static site generator that compiles templates into HTML. | Nikola is a static website and blog generator that turns written content into a folder of HTML files for upload to a server. |
Plans
In their own words
Eleventy
Eleventy is a free static site generator that compiles templates into HTML. It starts with zero configuration and also allows flexible configuration as project needs change. Content can come from Markdown, and templates can use HTML, JavaScript, WebC, Liquid, Nunjucks, Handlebars, Mustache, EJS, Haml, Pug, TypeScript, JSX, MDX, Sass, and custom formats. Eleventy does not require a JavaScript framework and produces zero client-side JavaScript by default. It can fit into an existing directory structure, letting teams convert selected templates rather than an entire site. The tool includes a local preview server, CMS integration, and multilingual support. It requires JavaScript and recommends Node.js version 18 or newer; quick-start commands are provided for macOS, Linux, and Windows, and for npm, pnpm, and Yarn. Its documentation says it probably is not the right tool for single-page applications, given its defaults and full-page navigation. Eleventy supports self-hosted use and is marked MIT licensed. The homepage reports a build time of 1.93 seconds for 4,000 Markdown files.
Nikola
Nikola is a static site and blog generator that turns written content into HTML files and assets for a web server. It can build blogs, company and personal sites, software project sites, and book sites. Built-in inputs include reStructuredText, Markdown, IPython notebooks, and HTML, with plugins available for additional formats. Blog components include comments, tags, categories, archives, and RSS/Atom feeds; image galleries and code listings are also included. Nikola supports almost 40 languages out of the box, including posts in multiple languages. Sites can be hosted on any web server that serves HTML files, and the handbook lists GitHub Pages deployment. The software is written in Python 3, with Python 3.8 or later listed on the homepage, and is free under the MIT license. Users can extend it with Python plugins and make themes using Mako or Jinja2. Incremental builds use doit. Because generated sites do not run code on the server, they cannot process form input except for comments. Indexed plugins and themes are not officially supported.