@11ty/eleventy is a powerful, flexible, and simple static site generator that is built on Node.js. It is highly configurable and requires minimal setup, making it ideal for building websites or blogs quickly. Eleventy takes markdown, liquid templates, and other common file formats as input, and generates HTML, CSS and JavaScript output. It also supports a wide range of plugins, making it highly extensible.
Nextra is a flexible and customizable documentation generator for Next.js projects. It provides a simple and intuitive way to create beautiful and interactive documentation websites. With Nextra, you can easily write your documentation in Markdown and customize the layout, styling, and navigation to fit your project's needs.
Both @11ty/eleventy and nextra have gained popularity in the static site generator and documentation tool space. They have dedicated communities and a growing user base. However, @11ty/eleventy has been around for longer and has a larger user base, making it more popular overall.
Setup and Configuration
@11ty/eleventy is a static site generator that focuses on simplicity and flexibility. It provides a zero-config setup by default, allowing developers to start building websites quickly. Configuration options are available to customize the build process. On the other hand, nextra is a documentation tool built on top of Next.js, which offers more extensive configuration and requires some initial setup to integrate with existing projects.
Flexibility and Customization
@11ty/eleventy offers a highly flexible and customizable environment. It supports various templating languages, such as markdown, Nunjucks, Liquid, and more. It allows developers to create their own plugins and extend the functionality of the static site generator. Nextra, being built on Next.js, provides the flexibility and customization options available within the Next.js ecosystem.
Features and Functionality
Both @11ty/eleventy and nextra come with a set of features suitable for static site generation and documentation. @11ty/eleventy offers a simple and intuitive templating engine with support for layouts, partials, and data-driven content. It also has built-in support for syntax highlighting, pagination, and asset optimization. Nextra integrates with Next.js, providing features like server-side rendering, dynamic routing, and API routes, making it suitable for building dynamic documentation sites.
Performance
Both @11ty/eleventy and nextra are performant options. @11ty/eleventy generates static sites that can be deployed anywhere, resulting in fast-loading websites. Nextra, being built on Next.js, benefits from its optimized rendering and caching strategies, providing excellent performance for dynamic documentation websites.
Community and Documentation
Both packages have active communities and provide documentation to get started and troubleshoot common issues. However, due to its longer history and larger user base, @11ty/eleventy has a more extensive collection of community-contributed plugins, themes, and resources available.