From Backend Development to Personal Blogging: My Journey with a Static Site Built on 11ty

As a seasoned .NET backend developer, my expertise has traditionally revolved around intricate server-side systems—building robust APIs, managing complex data workflows, and fine-tuning performance at the hardware level. These are environments where visibility is limited, and the focus is on behind-the-scenes functionality. Venturing into frontend development and creating a public-facing website represented a fresh and exciting challenge.

Motivated to produce a straightforward platform for sharing insights and highlighting some of the reusable libraries I’ve developed, I decided to build a static website. After evaluating various options, I chose 11ty (also known as Eleventy) for its minimal setup, speed, and flexibility, making it an ideal fit for a lightweight, easy-to-maintain blog.

Throughout this project, I’ve gained valuable insights into static site generation, modern web performance, and frontend best practices. It was a rewarding departure from my typical work with memory management, garbage collection, and concurrent processes—an opportunity to focus on fresh design and content delivery.

I’m pleased to share my creation with the community: ByteAether Blog. To give an idea of its performance, I’ve included some Lighthouse benchmark results, which showcase the site’s fast load times and optimized performance.

If you’re interested in static site development or looking for inspiration for a lightweight personal project, I hope you find some value in my experience. Feel free to explore the blog and, as always, I welcome any feedback or suggestions!