Eleventy vs Pelican

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted blogging platforms options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

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FeatureEleventyPelican
CategoryBlogging PlatformsBlogging Platforms
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaScriptPython
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcebinary, source
GitHub stars★ 19,840★ 13,331
First released20182010
ReplacesWordPress, MediumWordPress, Blogger

Why pick each one

Choose Eleventy if…

  • Very flexible templating
  • Lean output
Eleventy details

Choose Pelican if…

  • Great for Python users
  • Mature and stable
Pelican details

Frequently asked questions

Is Eleventy or Pelican better?

Neither is universally better. Eleventy has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are Eleventy and Pelican free and open-source?

Yes. Eleventy is licensed under MIT and Pelican under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Eleventy and Pelican with Docker?

Eleventy: check the project docs for container support. Pelican: check the project docs for container support.

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