The Next Phase of Eleventy: Return of the Side Project
As Eleventy continues forward on its mission to help super-fans of HTML quickly and easily build things for the web, as a responsible steward of the project I must disclose that we are no longer doing so with full time sponsorship. As such, Eleventy will be returning to its roots as a side-project and transitioning away from full time development.
Up front, I do want to make a few things clear:
- No action is required by folks building with Eleventy. Eleventy has always been independently bootstrapped and it is not changing ownership/stewardship. We march on independently as before.
- We are thankful for the year of full time development and maintenance donated to the project by Netlify and I’m proud of the things we shipped in that time: including but not limited to the stable 2.0 release.
It’s incredible to recognize that we’re nearing 6 million lifetime downloads on npm and almost 60,000 repositories on GitHub. I’m so appreciative of the community of folks that have propelled this little open source project to where it is today.
Eleventy will continue forward in a reduced (and more focused) capacity. We’ll have to make some tough prioritization decisions which may include deprecation (or community-ownership?) of some of our official plugins (as always obeying semantic versioning principles). You can help inform these decisions by taking the Eleventy Community Survey (2023).
We’ll make these decisions responsibly with the data we collect from the survey but to give a small clue as to the potential severity of the cuts the Vite, Serverless, and Edge plugins all come to mind as eligible targets right now. Eleventy has always been a build-first tool and refocusing Eleventy’s core feature set to bundler-free static site generation will allow us to continue to serve folks that have come to rely on the project.
Realistically it must be acknowledged that this news is a bit of a setback for Eleventy—but importantly I am still personally very passionate about the project’s continued survival. From the very beginning I had an expectation that Eleventy was a ten-year project and we’re on year six of that timeline.
How can you help?
First off, please take one or two minutes to fill out Eleventy’s Community Survey to help shape the future of the project (it’s a few multiple choice questions).
If your company has a vested interest in Eleventy would like to see Eleventy continue with full time development and maintenance, please get in touch.
If you have any comments or questions about this announcement, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
…and keep building for the web! ❤️
54 Comments
fahru
@zachleat just want to say thank you for all of your hard work on eleventy! :)
Andy Bell
@zachleat @eleventy i wish set studio could afford to sponsor full time 11ty dev because we would in a heartbeat
Zach Leatherman
The most helpful thing folks in the Eleventy community can do right now is to take our Community Survey, which will help streamline our efforts to essential features and plugins!https://forms.gle/zFA4Jno1cfT8nt9J8Thank you! Eleventy Community Survey (2023)
elle mundy
@zachleat @eleventy this is sad to read, but i hope eleventy finds another sponsor soon! thanks for all the work so far, it’s an incredible framework and i’m about to launch a new blog with it
Stephanie Eckles
@zachleat Ohh, that's rough for you, sorry that had to end! 💜 Sending good luck for finding some new significant sponsorships!
patak
@zachleat @eleventy Sad to hear the arrangement ended, but happy you got that full-time year to unleash 11ty 2.0. You're an example of how to maintain OS projects, and how to navigate the always changing landscape around them. Good luck for this next stage for the project. I … Truncated
Mike Aparicio
@zachleat Appreciate all you do, Zach. ❤️
motionsuggests@indieweb.social
@zachleat @eleventy 💜
zero_gravitas@indieweb.social
@zachleat @eleventy What an amazing year 11ty had. I'm betting the years ahead will be great as well. Thanks for everything.
Roel Nieskens
@zachleat I hope the shift from main to side project also brings good things!! 💖
Hidde
@zachleat @eleventy ❤️❤️❤️
Eric Portis
@zachleat @eleventy Happy for the year that was. Sad that it's ending. Continually, deeply upset about the mismatch between real value and where the money goes in our industry. But most of all, thankful for your persistence, principles, and vision. 🖤🎈
Eric
@zachleat Your blog post has only made my monthly contribution more powerful. Jokes aside, thank you for all the work and love you pour into this. @eleventy
Tyler Sticka
@zachleat Oof, sorry to hear about this change, Zach! I’m really impressed with how much you accomplished within that sponsorship, @eleventy is such an amazing tool
Lynn Fisher
@zachleat @eleventy Appreciate you, Zach 💚
depone
@zachleat so sorry to hear the fulltime sponsorship ended. Thank you for all you are doing with @eleventy and for the web. Sending good vibes. How does this change affect your job/career prospects?
Max Böck
@zachleat @eleventy sorry to hear that. you and the community have poured a massive amount of work and love into eleventy and it shows. will continue to support the project!
Jakub Iwanowski :bash:
@zachleat @eleventy sorry to hear that good luck, Eleventy is awesome!
Adam Stoddard
@zachleat @eleventy 💚💚💚
Evan Minto
@zachleat Really sorry to hear this. You've been doing great work Zach, and I hope you can keep it up as a side project.
Erin Kissane
@zachleat @eleventy Ah man, I hate how difficult it is to maintain stability in open source—I’m glad you got that year and I’m sorry you’re having to make these decisions now. 💙
Alistair Shepherd
@zachleat @eleventy Appreciate your work Zach and huge props for being so transparent and clear with this update!
Peter Krautzberger
@zachleat 💛 thanks for all your work on @eleventy !
Matt Stein
@zachleat @eleventy I’m inspired by what you do with this project and how you go about it, regardless of how things change. Thanks for that, and please continue to rock.
Erik Vorhes
@zachleat — the end of an amazing year for @eleventy! Here’s to whatever comes next & to the continued success of Eleventy.
David Fitzgibbon
@zachleat @eleventy Thanks so much for all the work you've been putting in! Hope this is only a minor setback in the grand scheme of things!
Nicolas Hoizey
@zachleat thanks a lot Netlify for the huge contribution of a year long full time sponsorship! ❤️
Colinaut
@zachleat @eleventy unfortunate but you clearly used that year well — 2.0 was great! I’ll keep suture project both with enthusiasm and monetarily in hopes it will continue to mature, if at a slower pace.
Stephen Bell
@zachleat @eleventy Thanks for all you do! And thanks to Netlify for a great year of updates. 🎈
Phil Hawksworth
@zachleat @eleventy The things you’ve managed to accomplish in that year!Huge thanks from a huge fan of both you and this invaluable project. Onwards!
Christian Alder 🌱
@zachleat @eleventy Sorry to hear this Zach - I hope you're able to find another sponsor soon! You did incredible things with that year, thank you for bringing 2.0 and maintaining the project as you have. 🎈💚
Thomas Rigby
@zachleat@fediverse.zachleat.com @eleventy@fosstodon.org Such an amazing side project 🥰
Ariel Salminen 🏳️🌈
@zachleat @eleventy Appreciate all your hard work on this tool Zach. ❤️
Chadams
@zachleat @eleventy Thanks so much for all of the hard work you have put in to this incredible project.
Ana Rodrigues
@zachleat @eleventy 🧡 Thank you so much for all your work!
Matt Steele
@zachleat @eleventy you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished during this time. The taxonomy of OSS funding models you put together is a great reference, and should help the next person headed down this road. Best of luck!
Paul Everitt
@zachleat @eleventy 11ty is very important to what I do, and Zach is an important voice for what I believe in (the web platform.)More than that, Zach's a kind heart and a funny poster. Let's see if we can all pitch in to find a way to make this work out.
Matthias Ott
@zachleat @eleventy We appreciate you, Zach! 💚✊
Chris Price
@zachleat @eleventy 💚
Raymond Camden
@zachleat @eleventy thank you so much for everything you've done
Thomas Michael Semmler
@zachleat @eleventy I am very to sorry to hear that. I hope you are doing alright! I am sorry this didn’t go the way you may have imagined it :/ your community admires you!I love eleventy and what it stands before. It has given me not only solutions technologically but it bald al… Truncated
Zach Leatherman
Really appreciate all of the kind words in this thread—they really mean a lot.I’ve learned an overwhelming amount running this project—and not just on the technical side.I’ve learned things about our industry, funding, and investment that have really challenged my views on open s… Truncated
Zach Leatherman
@raymondcamden @eleventy Appreciate your support Raymond!
Zach Leatherman
@matthiasott @eleventy Thank you Matthias! Likewise!
Zach Leatherman
@Chronotope @eleventy not sure but I think that might require independently monetizing—it’s fragile to hitch your wagon to someone else’s monetization strategy
Zach Leatherman
@patak Thank you Patak!! 🙌🏻
Zach Leatherman
@pauleveritt Appreciate you, Paul 🙌🏻
Eric
@zachleat @eleventy This is a bummer, you've made such a great big thing. I've benefitted so much from you getting to work on it for this year, so thank's a million.
Reed
@zachleat I appreciate everything you do with @eleventy ❤️ I think my coworkers are getting humorously tired of me taking about it and how much I love using it. What started as a small "serendipity" project became a much-loved tool. Thank you 87 times 🧑💻