A hand-picked collection of tools, guides, and communities for Jekyll developers — from first-time setup to advanced deployments.
🚀 Getting Started
New to Jekyll? Start with the official documentation, then follow our installation guide to get a site running locally in under 10 minutes.
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Jekyll Official Documentation | The definitive guide — installation, configuration, content, themes, and deployment. |
| JekyllHub Installation Guide | Our step-by-step guide to setting up Jekyll and deploying to GitHub Pages. |
| Jekyll Cheatsheet | A single-page reference for Liquid filters, variables, front matter, and more. |
| CloudCannon Academy | Free video tutorials covering Jekyll from beginner to advanced, maintained by CloudCannon. |
| Jekyll Talk Forum | The official Jekyll community forum — great for getting help and finding answers. |
🌐 Hosting & Deployment
GitHub Pages is the most popular free host for Jekyll sites and has native Jekyll support. For sites that use custom plugins, Netlify and Cloudflare Pages are excellent alternatives with generous free tiers.
| Platform | Free Plan | Custom Plugins | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Pages | ✓ Yes | ✗ Limited | Native Jekyll build, zero config for simple sites |
| Netlify | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | Full Jekyll support, deploy previews, form handling |
| Cloudflare Pages | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | Fast global CDN, unlimited sites and bandwidth |
| Vercel | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | Great DX, instant deploys from Git |
| Render | ✓ Yes | ✓ Yes | Simple setup, good free tier |
GitHub Pages note: Only whitelisted plugins work with the native build. To use custom plugins on GitHub Pages, set up a GitHub Actions workflow to build and deploy manually.
🔌 Essential Plugins
These are the most widely used Jekyll plugins. All except jekyll-admin are GitHub Pages compatible — use them without any extra build steps.
| Plugin | Purpose |
|---|---|
| jekyll-seo-tag | Adds meta tags for SEO and social sharing (Open Graph, Twitter Cards). |
| jekyll-feed | Generates an Atom RSS feed for your posts automatically. |
| jekyll-sitemap | Silently generates a sitemap.xml for search engine indexing. |
| jekyll-paginate-v2 | Powerful pagination for posts, collections, and categories. |
| jekyll-archives | Auto-generates archive pages for tags, categories, and dates. |
| jekyll-admin | Adds a CMS-style admin UI to manage content locally. |
| jekyll-redirect-from | Create redirects for renamed or moved pages. |
Browse the full plugin list at Planet Jekyll Plugins and Awesome Jekyll Plugins.
🛠 Tools & Utilities
These tools speed up your Jekyll workflow — from local development to content management and performance testing.
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
| Bundler | Manages Ruby gem dependencies. Essential for any Jekyll project. |
| Rouge | Jekyll’s default syntax highlighter — supports 200+ languages. |
| Liquid Docs | Official reference for the Liquid templating language used in Jekyll. |
| CloudCannon | Visual CMS for Jekyll — lets non-developers edit content without touching code. |
| Forestry (Tina CMS) | Git-based CMS with a visual editor for Jekyll and other static site generators. |
| PageSpeed Insights | Test your Jekyll site’s Core Web Vitals and performance score. |
| HTML Proofer | Validates HTML output, checks links, images, and scripts for errors. |
📚 Learning & Tutorials
| Resource | Level | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Jekyll Step by Step Tutorial | Beginner | Official tutorial — builds a full site from scratch. |
| Michael Currin’s Jekyll Resources | All levels | Extensive curated list of guides, tools, and starter projects. |
| Awesome Jekyll | All levels | Community-maintained list of themes, plugins, guides, and tools. |
| Jekyll From Scratch | Beginner | Practical walkthrough building a Jekyll blog from the ground up. |
| Liquid Reference | Intermediate | Jekyll’s guide to Liquid tags, filters, and variables. |
💬 Community
Jekyll has a friendly, active community. These are the best places to ask questions, share work, and keep up with what's new.
| Community | Description |
|---|---|
| Jekyll Talk | Official forum — best place to ask questions and get help. |
| GitHub Discussions | Discussions on the Jekyll GitHub repo — close to the core team. |
| r/Jekyll | Reddit community for Jekyll users. |
| Planet Jekyll | News and updates from the Jekyll ecosystem — new themes, plugins, and posts. |
| JekyllHub Blog | Our own blog covering themes, tips, and Jekyll ecosystem news. |
💰 Selling Digital Products
If you've built a Jekyll theme worth sharing, you can sell it as a digital product. These platforms handle payments, file delivery, and licensing — so you can focus on building great themes.
| Platform | Fee | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Gumroad | 10% per sale | Simplest setup — create a product page in minutes. Great for indie creators. |
| Lemon Squeezy | 5% + $0.50 per sale | Modern Gumroad alternative with built-in tax compliance (VAT/GST handled automatically). |
| SendOwl | From $9/mo | Automated delivery, license key generation, upsells. Good for higher volume. |
| Paddle | 5% + $0.50 per sale | Merchant of record — handles all global tax compliance. Suits serious theme shops. |
| Payhip | 5% per sale (free plan) | No monthly fee on free plan. Simple storefront, supports EU VAT. |
| Ko-fi | 0% (free plan) | Community-focused, great for donations + paid downloads. |
Tax tip: Lemon Squeezy and Paddle act as the merchant of record — they collect and remit VAT/GST on your behalf worldwide. This is worth considering if you sell internationally.
Selling on JekyllHub
The simplest option: submit your theme to JekyllHub and link to your Gumroad or Lemon Squeezy page. You get discovery through the marketplace, and your chosen platform handles the transaction.
🎨 Find the Right Theme
Already set up and looking for a theme? Browse by what matters most to you:
- All Jekyll Themes — the full catalogue
- GitHub Pages Themes — themes that deploy without any extra configuration
- Free Jekyll Themes — open source, MIT licensed
- Submit Your Theme — list your own theme on JekyllHub