The same static site generation you know and love, now with endless Pro 'possum-bilties. But just like the other parts of the Awesomeverse, the core of Build Awesome will continue to be free and open source.
Content Management Systems (CMS) add a web-based interface to your site, allowing both technical and non-technical folks the ability to easily update the web site on-the-go.
Eleventy (like most site generators) is not tightly coupled to any specific CMS and offers the flexibility to work with a wide variety of available industry and community options! Content Management Systems decoupled in this way are known as Headless.
Using a Headless CMS offers a variety of benefits that will be immediately recognizable to developers familiar with more tightly-coupled/monolithic options, where the front and back-end are co-dependent on each other.
Primarily, using Headless allows developers more control over the front-end. This alleviates pressure on front-end performance and accessibility issues common to monolithic options. It’s worth noting that traditionally tightly-coupled solutions like Drupal, Joomla, or WordPress are also starting to offer Headless options too.
Types of Headless
Digging deeper, there are two main types of Headless CMS options:
Source Control: checks files directly into your code repository (git is a very popular one). You may hear these referred to as Git-based CMS solutions. A few benefits of this approach:
Your data and content are already versioned.
Works as-is with your existing deployment process, including branch/test/pre-production deploy previews.
No data migration is needed if you decide to swap providers—it’s baked in (not fried).
API Based: provide an external API that can be queried in your build or serverless functions. This approach gives you access to a powerful query language that can unlock access to complex data structures.
Headless CMS List on Jamstack.org
YouTube: From Zero to CMS in 2 Minutes with CloudCannon and Eleventy
How to get started with the 11ty (Eleventy) Blog Starter
11tyCMS: Public beta releases and source! Windows & Linux support, minor refactors and CSS improvements! — Jessie Heald (2026)
Announcing a new 11ty Shortlink and QR Code Generator purl.im — Adam DJ Brett (2025)
Notion meets Eleventy — vrugtehagel (2025)
Building a Lightweight Optimizely SaaS CMS Solution with 11ty — Minesh Shah (2025)
11tyCMS: Major accessibility improvements, CSS and editor tweaks, a new welcome wizard and better site support — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS: Major refactoring, state management overhaul, routing, site history selection and site dashboard implementation — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS: THE Eleventy Meetup appearance, metadata improvements, more post and collection goodness — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS: New home(s), build & publishing, with a side of collection indexing & bug fixes — Jessie Heald (2025)
How I Built This Website (With 11ty & CraftCMS) — Matthew Richards (2025)
11tyCMS: Metadata Editor, 11ty Build Integration & Design Refinements — Jessie Heald (2025)
Creating a website from Obsidian — Stephen Gower (2025)
Website updates — Laurence Hughes (2025)
11tyCMS: Image uploads and design enhancements — Jessie Heald (2025)
Why I Don't Use Wordpress — Ryan Gittings (2025)
Poaster: Solving SSG Microblogging Ergonomics with Ruby and KDialog — Nathan Upchurch (2025)
11tyCMS: Trapped in image and markdown hell — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS: Improved File Management and Posts List — Jessie Heald (2025)
My 11ty Blogging Workflow — Floh Gro (2025)
blog - obsidian templates and use — actuallysomecat (2025)
blog setup — actuallysomecat (2025)
Rapidly(?) Developing Front-End Components with 11ty with Michael Delaney — Michael Delaney (2025)
Using Notion as CMS with Eleventy — vrugtehagel (2025)
11tyCMS: First design & file management — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS: Electron Prototype — Jessie Heald (2025)
11tyCMS — Jessie Heald (2025)
DecapCMS with 11ty — DeaJae (2025)
fr1end1y 🧡🎈 — Steven Harland (2025)
Building with an 11ty starter sites and headless WordPress — David Waumsley (2025)
Now Using 11ty V3 — Devin Haska (2025)
Long-term WordPress user tries building with 11ty — David Waumsley (2025)
I picked a CMS — Alan Quirk (2025)
Dec 9: Building a blog — Callum Skeet (2024)
Oops, I built a headless frontend with 11ty — Adam Stoddard (2024)
Here's how this is all put together — Cory Dransfeldt (2024)
Ergonomic Static Site Blogging — Alex Ward (2024)
11ty and Ghost — Alex Ward (2024)
Prairie Rose Arena - Project Notes — Sam Feldstein (2024)
Building a Blog Site with Eleventy and Storyblok — Estela Franco (2024)
My Decap CMS setup with 11ty hosted on Cloudflare Pages — Patrick Grey (2024)
Tips for Running 11ty on Cloudflare Pages — Cassey Lottman (2024)
Live CMS Previews with Sanity and Eleventy — Max Böck (2024)
It turns out a CMS can be pretty awesome — Cory Dransfeldt (2024)
Integrating a (somewhat) custom CMS with Eleventy — Cory Dransfeldt (2024)
Create a Blog with Eleventy and Storyblok — Estela Franco (2024)
Building a Localised Site with 11ty, Sanity & Netlify — Ryan Gittings (2024)
Building a Live Preview with Eleventy, Contentful, and Liquid Templating — Silvestar Bistrović (2024)
Building a meetup community site using Global Data Files — Juha-Matti Santala (2024)
Publishing from Obsidian using 11ty — DeepakNess (2024)
How to connect Eleventy and Storyblok — Estela Franco (2024)
I changed my mind, my CMS adventure — Steve Abraham (2024)
Building a multi-language Taylor Swift Fan Site with CloudCannon and Eleventy (Zach's version) — Zach Leatherman (2023)
Let’s create a microblog with visual editing using Bookshop and Eleventy — Zach Leatherman (2023)
Live Editing an Eleventy Project in CloudCannon with Bookshop — Zach Leatherman (2023)
Using Wordpress as a headless CMS for Eleventy — Mike Aparicio (2023)
How to setup Agit CMS with your 11ty website — Ginger (2023)
Integrating WordPress Posts with 11ty — Kevin Gimbel (2023)
TinaCMS + 11ty — Clayton Errington (2023)
CloudCannon as a git based headless CMS for static site generators — Piotr Maliński (2023)
Eleventy and Storyblok - My perfect combination — Estela Franco (2023)
Headless kiosk application (with Kirby CMS) — James Steel (2023)
Build a Blog with Eleventy (11ty) and Webiny Headless CMS — Maurice King (2023)
Working with CloudCannon and Eleventy - My Experience — Raymond Camden (2023)
Post previews with Ghost, Eleventy & Netlify — David Darnes (2023)
Adding Tina CMS to 11ty — Mike Street (2023)
WordPress & Eleventy part two: Eleventy — Dana Byerly (2022)
WordPress & Eleventy part one: WordPress — Dana Byerly (2022)
Add Netlify CMS to an existing 11ty site — Mike Street (2022)
Using the Netlify CMS locally — Trevor Morris (2022)
How to use Contentful with Eleventy — Henry Desroches (2021)
Turn static HTML/CSS into a blog with CMS using the JAMStack — Kevin Powell (2021)
Sanity with 11ty — crossingtheruby (2021)
How to: add Twitter and Instagram Embeds on an Eleventy website using Sanity — Nicolas Goutay (2021)
Using 11ty JavaScript Data files to mix Markdown and CMS content into one collection — Bryan Robinson (2021)
How to add Netlify CMS to an existing Eleventy project — Hanna Taylor (2021)
Integrating Contentful with Eleventy to create static sites — Contentful (2020)
Adding Sanity.io Headless CMS To Eleventy — Bryan Lee (2020)
Building a website with a static site generator, part 1: Setup — Juha-Matti Santala (2020)
How my site is built with Eleventy + Ghost — Juha-Matti Santala (2020)
Consuming a headless CMS GraphQL API with Eleventy — Jérôme Coupé (2019)
Eleventy and Ghost — Ghost (2019)
Use Eleventy to generate a Ghost blog — David Darnes (2019)