How Jekyll Keeps Our Blog Fast & Dev-Friendly
At our company, we believe the tools we use should reflect our values: simplicity, speed, and transparency. That’s why we use Jekyll , a static site generator built in Ruby, to power our blog.
While there are countless blogging platforms and content management systems available today, from WordPress to headless CMS options, we chose Jekyll because it gives us full control, minimal complexity, and a workflow that fits seamlessly into how we already work as developers.
Here’s why we think it’s the right fit for us (and maybe for you too):
Built for Developers
Jekyll generates static HTML from Markdown files, which means our blog posts live right alongside our code. We write posts in simple .md files with YAML front matter, open pull requests for edits, and publish via Git.
This lets our team:
- Review content the same way we review code.
- Keep a complete version history of all blog posts.
- Collaborate on content using our existing Git workflows.
We don’t need to manage a CMS or maintain admin credentials. Our blog lives in the same repo we already use every day.
Speed That Speaks for Itself
Because Jekyll generates plain HTML pages, there’s no database to query and no server-side logic to slow things down. Our blog is:
- Fast to load
- SEO-friendly out of the box
- Easy to cache and optimize
And since there’s no runtime backend, we drastically reduce possibilities for bugs and security vulnerabilities.
We host our blog on Heroku, where each deployment rebuilds the site and serves static HTML with a lightweight web server. It’s fast, version-controlled, and easy to maintain.
Easy to Customize, Easy to Maintain
We use Liquid templates (built into Jekyll) to create consistent layouts across the blog. That means:
- Custom styling is straightforward
- Shared components like navigation and metadata are reusable
- We’re not locked into any theme or external plugin ecosystem
Jekyll gives us full control over the structure of our content, which is ideal for customizing things like SEO tags, social cards, and category pages.
What We’ve Learned
Jekyll isn’t a perfect fit for every team. If your content is managed by non-technical folks, it can require a bit of onboarding. (Though tools like Netlify CMS or Forestry can bridge that gap.)
But for a team like ours where developers are often writing or closely collaborating on blog content, Jekyll has been a great match. It lets us move fast, stay lightweight, and avoid the overhead that comes with more complex systems.
When to Use Jekyll
Jekyll is especially useful if:
- You want a fast, secure, and minimalist blog
- Your team is comfortable with Markdown and Git
- You value version control and developer workflows
- You don’t want to worry about managing a database or CMS backend
It’s also free, open source, and trusted by developers.
Conclusion
We’ve been really happy with how Jekyll has scaled with us, from a few early blog posts to a growing library of content. It’s simple, dependable, and developer-friendly, exactly the qualities we look for in our stack.
If you’re building a company blog and want full control without the complexity, give Jekyll a try.
Need help with your Rails application? Whether it’s general maintenance, upgrading or feature development, talk to us!