Key takeaway: The honest reason to still be on Jekyll is that GitHub Pages builds it for you and the site already works. That is a legitimate reason to stay and a bad reason to start. For a new site, Eleventy is the shortest conceptual hop, Hugo is the answer if builds are slow, and Astro is the answer if you want components.
Quick facts
- LanguageRuby
- CategoryRuby
- LicenseMIT
- Created2008
- GitHub stars49.2k
- Statusmature
Templating: Liquid Markdown
What it is
Jekyll is the SSG that started the modern static site movement in 2008. Liquid templates, Markdown, Ruby. GitHub Pages is built on it. Mature, slow on large catalogues, declining for new projects.
Best for
- Existing Jekyll sites with no reason to migrate
- GitHub Pages projects where Jekyll is the default
- Personal blogs with low post counts
When not to pick it
For new projects in 2026, pick Eleventy, Astro, or Hugo instead. Jekyll is mature but the maintenance cadence has slowed and build speed at scale is poor.
My take
Jekyll deserves respect for what it pioneered. For new sites, it is hard to recommend over Eleventy (in JS) or Hugo (for speed) or Astro (for everything else).
GitHub Pages is why it survives
Jekyll's remaining structural advantage is that GitHub Pages builds it natively: push Markdown, get a site, no CI to configure and nothing to pay for. For project documentation and personal sites that is still hard to beat on effort. The catch is the plugin allowlist. The moment you need a plugin outside it, you build with GitHub Actions instead and publish the output, at which point the native-build advantage disappears entirely and you could have been running anything. Worth checking that before you commit rather than after. The other recurring friction is Ruby itself: version managers, bundler, and native gem extensions that break when you change machines or when a CI image moves underneath you. Developers who write Ruby daily find that unremarkable, and everybody else finds it the single most annoying part of the tool.
Choosing the right exit
There are four sensible destinations and the right one depends on what you value. Eleventy is the shortest hop, because it speaks Liquid, understands front matter, and lays content out in a recognisable way, so a straightforward blog often ports in a day while your team stays in JavaScript. Hugo is the choice if build time at scale is what pushed you, though every template gets rewritten in Go templates. Bridgetown suits a Ruby team that wants to stay in Ruby and keep Liquid while gaining components and a modern asset pipeline. Astro is the choice when you want a component model and a built-in image pipeline and will accept rebuilding the view layer. Whichever you pick, preserve permalinks exactly and ship the 301 map in the same deploy as the launch.
Frequently asked questions
Is Jekyll still worth using?
For an existing site that works, yes, leave it alone. For a new project, no. Build performance degrades noticeably as post counts grow, the development pace has slowed, and the Ruby toolchain is a recurring cost for teams that do not otherwise write Ruby. Eleventy, Hugo, or Astro are all better starting points.
Jekyll or Eleventy?
Eleventy for anything new. It occupies the same conceptual space, templates only and no client framework, but runs on Node, supports Liquid among several template languages, builds faster, and is more actively developed. The migration path from Jekyll is the shortest of any option because templating and front matter carry across.
Does GitHub Pages still build Jekyll automatically?
Yes, and that native build path is the main reason so many project sites remain on it. The important limitation is the restricted plugin set. If your site needs a plugin outside the allowlist, you end up building through GitHub Actions and publishing the output, which removes the convenience advantage entirely.
Links
Compare Jekyll side-by-side
Similar tools you should also consider
Eleventy (11ty)
Zero-config JS-based SSG. Templates only, no client-side JS framework.
Read the take →Hugo
The fastest SSG, full stop. Go binary, single-file install, builds 10k pages in seconds.
Read the take →Bridgetown
Ruby-based, Jekyll's ambitious successor with modern frontend integration.
Read the take →If Jekyll is your pick, the next conversation is short
The 30-min call is where your project gets a real architecture, an SEO transport plan, and a price range you can take to your team. Describe your site, your timeline, your existing content. I tell you whether Jekyll is genuinely the right call for you, and what the build actually looks like.