Build Awesome (Eleventy)

Build Awesome is the new name for Eleventy, the static site generator that turns a folder of Markdown, Liquid, Nunjucks or HTML templates into plain HTML files. It joined Font Awesome in 2024 and renamed in March 2026; plugins and build commands carry over. MIT licensed and free.

Setup is Node.js 22 or newer and one npx command. No database, nothing running at request time: the output goes on Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages or S3. It injects no markup of its own, and the pitch is sites that still build years later.

The paid piece is Build Awesome Pro, a hosted visual editor for people who never want a terminal. Kickstarter funded it, but it's still marked coming soon with no public price, and Pro won't be required to use the free tool. Solo and small teams: free. Content teams with non-developer editors: watch Pro, or bolt a headless CMS on today.

The catch is the transition. The stable release is still Eleventy 3.1.x on the old @11ty/eleventy package, Build Awesome 4 is in alpha, and npm install @awesome.me/buildawesome without the @alpha tag installs a placeholder that just throws an error. Need interactive islands? Astro fits better.