Does GitHub Pages Support Other SSGs (Static Site Generators)?

Yes! GitHub Pages natively supports Jekyll, but you can also deploy other SSGs (like Eleventy, Hugo, Astro, Next.js (static export), and Gatsby) by building the site locally or using GitHub Actions.

🔹 Natively Supported: Jekyll

• GitHub Pages has built-in support for Jekyll.
• If you have a Jekyll project, GitHub automatically builds and deploys it when you push changes.
• Just add a _config.yml file and deploy.

🔹 Other Static Site Generators (SSGs)

For other SSGs, you need to generate the static files locally and push them to GitHub.

✅ Eleventy (11ty)

1. Build the site locally:

   npx @11ty/eleventy
   

2. Push the _site/ folder to GitHub.
3. Set GitHub Pages to serve from gh-pages or docs/.

✅ Hugo

1. Build the Hugo site:

   hugo
   

2. Push the public/ folder to GitHub.

✅ Astro

1. Generate the static site:

   npm run build
   

2. Deploy dist/ to GitHub.

✅ Gatsby

1. Build Gatsby for static export:

   gatsby build
   

2. Push public/ to GitHub.

✅ Next.js (Static Export)

1. Export a static site:

   next build && next export
   

2. Push the out/ folder to GitHub.

🛠 How to Automate Deployment?

If you want to automatically build and deploy SSGs instead of manually running commands, you can use GitHub Actions.
Example GitHub Action for Hugo:

name: Deploy Hugo site to GitHub Pages
on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
jobs:
  deploy:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Checkout repo
        uses: actions/checkout@v2
      - name: Install Hugo
        run: sudo apt-get install hugo
      - name: Build
        run: hugo
      - name: Deploy
        uses: peaceiris/actions-gh-pages@v3
        with:
          github_token: $
          publish_dir: ./public

This builds and deploys the Hugo site automatically when you push changes.

🔥 Summary

✅ GitHub Pages natively supports Jekyll
✅ Other SSGs (Eleventy, Hugo, Astro, Next.js, etc.) work but require manual build & push
✅ Use GitHub Actions to automate deployment