My latest project was to reimplement my personal webpage again. For a long time, I've been using GatsbyJS, and while it was fine for a while, it eventually became too complex for what I actually needed. Plus, GitHub was constantly complaining about security vulnerabilities in outdated libraries, and I wasn't particularly keen on spending hours upgrading a complex React-based ecosystem just for a static site.

In the end, I decided to look for a simpler, static, build-time generated approach. Simplicity and performance are huge for me, and I wanted something that reflected that. That's when I found Eleventy (11ty). To be honest, I didn't know much about it before I started, but after testing it out, I'm quite happy with the fit.

Why the switch?

• Simplicity: No more complex React state or GraphQL for a simple bio and blog.
• Performance: 11ty is much faster and generates zero-JS by default.
• Security: Moving away from a massive dependency tree solved my security alert headaches.

For the design, I knew I wanted to go with a Brutalist approach. It feels raw, honest, and matches the "no-nonsense" philosophy I'm aiming for. One thing I'm still struggling with is deciding which mode I enjoy the most. Pretty much everything I use is set to dark mode by default, but there's something about the light brutalist theme that just works.

In the end, I've implemented both dark and light modes, and I'll probably keep switching between them until I finally make up my mind.

Stay tuned for more updates (and hopefully more consistent writing).