Installing a JavaScript Runtime

To run Eleventy on your machine, you need at least one JavaScript Runtime (a program to run JavaScript code) installed on your computer. The most common of these is Node.js.

Node.js

You can check whether or not you have Node.js installed by running node --version in a terminal application. (Well, wait—what is a Terminal?)

If the command is not found or it reports a number lower than 18, you will need to head over to nodejs.org to download and install Node.js version 18 or higher (required by Eleventy v3.0.0).

For more advanced use cases (e.g. installing multiple versions of Node.js simultaneously), it’s common to use tools like nvm or fnm. Platform-specific installation instructions for these tools are available at: nodejs.org/en/download.

Odd Versions of Node.js

It is not recommended (or supported by the Eleventy project) to use an odd major version of Node.js (e.g. Node 19), per guidance on the Node.js Releases documentation. Our experience has found that even-numbered major versions are more reliable and we encourage folks to stick with even-numbered releases of Node.js whenever possible!

Deno

You can run Eleventy on Deno too. Only the latest major version of Deno is supported by Eleventy.

You can check whether or not you have Deno installed by running deno --version in a terminal application. (Well, wait—what is a Terminal?)

You’ll run Eleventy on Deno using a command like one of these:

deno --allow-all npm:@11ty/eleventy
deno --allow-all npm:@11ty/eleventy --serve

Read about our plans to move away from --allow-all on #3278.

Other pages in Getting Started:

• Command Line Usage
  • Debug Mode
• Starter Projects
• Migrating to Eleventy