wp-11ty is a minimal reference implementation that uses the Eleventy static site generator as a front-end for a WordPress website, pulling content through the WordPress REST API and outputting static HTML pages.
What is wp-11ty?
wp-11ty is a minimal starter repository created by jhackett1 that demonstrates how to connect Eleventy (11ty) to the WordPress REST API. It takes a WordPress site's posts feed as its input and produces a static site containing a clickable list of posts and a separate static HTML page for each post. The project runs on Node.js and is intended to be a small, readable example rather than a full-featured theme.
Key Features
- Eleventy front-end — Uses the Eleventy static site generator (version not specified) to build pages from data fetched via the WordPress API.
- WordPress REST API integration — Fetches posts from a WordPress installation's REST API endpoint, demonstrated with posts from Rolling Stone.
- Static page generation — Each post from the feed is rendered as its own static HTML page, making the output fast and hostable anywhere.
- Minimal setup — Requires only Node.js and npm; two commands (
npm iandnpm start) run the development server onlocalhost:8080. - Static hosting ready — Output is suitable for any static hosting platform, including Netlify, Vercel, and S3.
- CodeSandbox compatible — Can be opened directly in CodeSandbox via the GitHub-box integration for instant browser-based experimentation.
Who is it for?
wp-11ty is for web developers who want to combine the content-editing experience of WordPress with the performance and build tooling of Eleventy. It is also useful for teams that manage larger sites with non-technical content authors who need a familiar WordPress admin interface while the public-facing site is generated as static files. Agencies evaluating a headless WordPress setup can use this repository as a clean starting point.
What can you do with wp-11ty?
- Developers building a static blog: Use the WordPress REST API to pull posts and get a fast, static site with individual post pages.
- Teams migrating to a headless CMS: Keep WordPress as the content backend and replace the front-end with an Eleventy-generated site without changing the author workflow.
- Prototyping a headless WordPress architecture: Quickly spin up a working example locally or on CodeSandbox to evaluate the approach before committing to a larger project.
How does wp-11ty work?
The project uses Node.js and npm. After installing dependencies with npm i, you start the development server with npm start. During the build, Eleventy fetches the list of posts from the WordPress REST API (the example targets Rolling Stone's WordPress site), generates an index page listing those posts, and creates individual static pages for each post. The generated output is then ready to deploy to any static host.
FAQ
Does wp-11ty require Node.js?
Yes, the development and build process requires Node.js and npm to be installed on your machine. The project runs on a local development server available at localhost:8080.
Can I deploy wp-11ty to Netlify or Vercel?
Yes, the output is a set of static HTML files, so it can be hosted on any static hosting provider, including Netlify, Vercel, and S3 buckets. The repository itself does not include deployment configuration, but the static output is all that is needed.
What is the WordPress API?
The WordPress REST API is a built-in interface that allows external applications to access WordPress content as JSON. wp-11ty uses this API to retrieve posts instead of connecting directly to a database, which keeps the static site generation process simple.
