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. We recommend 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. having multiple versions of Node.js installed 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 Numbered 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, 21, 23), 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 when 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 --serveRead about our plans to move away from --allow-all on #3278.