Eleventy vs WriteFreely

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeatureEleventyWriteFreely
CategoryBlogging PlatformsSocial Networks
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageJavaScriptGo
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM256 MB256 MB
Deploymentbinary, sourcedocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 19,840★ 5,216
First released20182018
ReplacesWordPress, MediumMedium, Tumblr

Why pick each one

Choose Eleventy if…

  • Very flexible templating
  • Lean output
Eleventy details

Choose WriteFreely if…

  • Clean minimalist design
  • Lightweight to host
WriteFreely details

Frequently asked questions

Is Eleventy or WriteFreely better?

Neither is universally better. Eleventy has the larger community, while WriteFreely is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Eleventy and WriteFreely free and open-source?

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

Can I run Eleventy and WriteFreely with Docker?

Eleventy: check the project docs for container support. WriteFreely: yes.

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