Jekyll is a fantastic static site generator that makes it easy to create and maintain a blog or website. Here’s what I’ve learned about getting started with Jekyll.

What is Jekyll?

Jekyll is a simple, blog-aware static site generator perfect for personal, project, or organization sites. It takes your content written in Markdown, processes it through templates, and produces a complete static website ready to be served.

Key Features

1. Simple Setup

No databases, no complex configurations. Just your content and templates.

2. Markdown Support

Write your posts in Markdown - a simple, readable format that converts to HTML.

3. Liquid Templating

Jekyll uses the Liquid templating language, making it easy to create dynamic layouts while keeping the output static.

Basic Structure

Here’s the typical structure of a Jekyll site:

.
├── _config.yml     # Configuration
├── _posts/         # Blog posts
├── _layouts/       # Post and page templates
├── _includes/      # Reusable components
├── _sass/          # Sass partials
├── css/            # Stylesheets
└── index.html      # Homepage

Getting Started

  1. Install Jekyll: gem install jekyll bundler
  2. Create a new site: jekyll new my-site
  3. Navigate to your site: cd my-site
  4. Build and serve: bundle exec jekyll serve
  5. View your site at http://localhost:4000

Why I Chose Jekyll

  • GitHub Pages Integration: Free hosting with GitHub Pages
  • Simplicity: No backend to maintain
  • Speed: Static sites are incredibly fast
  • Version Control: Everything is in Git

Jekyll has been a great choice for this blog, and I’m excited to continue exploring its capabilities!