Text11ty is an Eleventy starter theme for writers and bloggers that compiles Markdown into a static, SEO-optimized website.
What is Text11ty?
Text11ty is a free, open-source Eleventy (11ty) template designed for content-focused websites such as blogs and documentation pages. It takes Markdown files as input and produces a static HTML website with automatic SEO metadata. The template is built on Eleventy, a static site generator known for its speed and flexibility, and is published by Axcora with a public demo at text11ty.pages.dev and a second demo with image support at eleventy.web.app. The project's GitHub repository describes it as "eleventy text for blogger" and is tagged with topics like eleventy-starter, eleventy-template, and website-template.
Key Features
- Auto SEO — Automatically inserts SEO meta tags based on each post's front matter, helping search engines index content.
- Markdown-first workflow — Write articles in Markdown and the template renders them as clean HTML pages, keeping the focus on text.
- Responsive design — The theme includes layouts for both desktop and mobile, as shown in the project's screenshots.
- Documentation mode — The same template can be used to create documentation pages, not just blog posts.
- Two demo variants — The main demo at text11ty.pages.dev shows the plain text layout, while the eleventy.web.app demo showcases image handling.
- Open-source codebase — The GitHub repository is tagged as an Eleventy starter and theme, making it easy to modify or extend.
Who is it for?
- Writers and bloggers who need a distraction-free, text-focused theme to publish articles without designer overhead.
- Documentation maintainers who want a clean static site for technical docs using the same Markdown-based workflow.
- Eleventy learners who can study a working starter project to understand 11ty's folder structure and templating.
- Hobbyist website owners who want a fast, minimal blog with minimal setup and no backend.
What can you do with Text11ty?
- Start a personal blog — Drop Markdown files into the content directory and build a static, SEO-ready blog.
- Publish project documentation — Use the same theme to generate a simple, text-light documentation site.
- Practice SEO implementation — The auto SEO feature lets you inspect how meta tags are generated from front matter without building custom SEO code.
- Launch a lightweight website — For anyone who needs a small, fast site without JavaScript frameworks, this Eleventy theme keeps output as static HTML.
How does Text11ty work?
Text11ty follows the standard Eleventy workflow: content is authored in Markdown with front matter, Eleventy processes templates and content at build time, and the output is a static site that can be hosted anywhere. The template includes a video tutorial and written documentation from the creator, which cover installation and setup steps.
FAQ
Is Text11ty free?
Yes, Text11ty is an open-source Eleventy starter template available on GitHub. The project page includes a "Buy me a coffee" link, indicating it's free to use with optional donations.
What do I need to use Text11ty?
You need Node.js and npm to run an Eleventy project. The template content is written in Markdown, and the build process generates static HTML files.
Can Text11ty be used for documentation sites?
Yes, the theme is described as usable for both blog article content and documentation pages, so it suits any text-heavy static website.
