April 11, 2026
Name change, flame change
The End of Eleventy
Rebranded as “Build Awesome,” funded then canceled—devs sound off
TLDR: Eleventy was rebranded as “Build Awesome,” and its Kickstarter hit the goal fast but was canceled due to email snafus and “lost momentum.” Devs are split between supporting the creator and mourning the name, while many roast the “momentum” excuse and rekindle the static-vs-WordPress debate—because your websites still matter.
Eleventy—the simple tool that turns folders of text into fast, plain websites—just got rebranded as Build Awesome under Font Awesome. The Kickstarter rocketed past its $40k goal in a day and then… got canceled. Reason given: emails to backers landed in spam, killing “momentum,” so they’ll relaunch later. The community’s reaction? A mix of grief, side‑eye, and memes. One fan summed up the vibe: “Eleventy is an awesome name,” essentially throwing a tiny name‑funeral while still happy its creator has a steady gig.
The real pile‑on hit the cancellation logic. Commenters asked why a fully funded project needs “hype” to proceed—“since when do sponsors need momentum if the goal has been met?” And the drama didn’t stop there. A “don’t-mess-with-my-mouse” brigade showed up after a reader swore off the article over a gimmicky cursor: “fuckery with the mouse pointer” became the surprise meme of the day. Meanwhile, the age‑old web fight reignited: static site generators (prebuilt pages) vs WordPress (pages built on the fly). Some argue static is safer and faster for small sites; others roll their eyes at more tooling churn. Hacker News threads lit up, and the mood is clear: excitement for the tech, skepticism for the marketing, and a lot of jokes about momentum and mice.
Key Points
- •Font Awesome launched a Kickstarter for Build Awesome/Build Awesome Pro seeking $40,000 and reached the goal in a single day.
- •An update says the Kickstarter was cancelled and will be rescheduled due to email delivery issues that undermined campaign momentum.
- •Build Awesome is presented as a rebrand of Eleventy (11ty), effectively signaling the end of Eleventy as a standalone brand.
- •The article outlines SSG history and positions Eleventy as a flexible, Node.js-based, “anti-framework” supporting multiple templating engines.
- •Eleventy adoption includes major organizations; Zach Leatherman moved Eleventy’s stewardship from Netlify to Font Awesome in 2024, with the 2026 transition to Build Awesome.