Getting Started with Zola

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Getting Started with Zola

Zola is a fast static site generator written in Rust. It's what powers the Tanuki theme, and it's a joy to work with.

Why Zola?

There are many static site generators out there—Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, Next.js—so why choose Zola?

Speed

Zola is incredibly fast. A typical site builds in milliseconds, not seconds. This makes development pleasant and deployments quick.

Single Binary

Unlike Jekyll (Ruby) or Eleventy (Node.js), Zola is a single binary with no dependencies. Download it, run it, done.

Built-in Features

Zola includes everything you need out of the box:

  • Sass compilation
  • Syntax highlighting
  • Search index generation
  • Image processing
  • Shortcodes
  • Taxonomies (tags, categories)
  • Multilingual support

No plugins to install, no configuration rabbit holes.

Installation

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install zola

Linux

# Snap
snap install zola --edge

# Or download from GitHub releases
wget https://github.com/getzola/zola/releases/download/v0.19.2/zola-v0.19.2-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz
tar xzf zola-*.tar.gz
sudo mv zola /usr/local/bin/

Windows

# Scoop
scoop install zola

# Or Chocolatey
choco install zola

Creating a New Site

zola init my-site
cd my-site

Zola will ask a few questions about your site configuration. Answer them, and you'll have a basic structure:

my-site/
├── config.toml
├── content/
├── sass/
├── static/
├── templates/
└── themes/

Adding Content

Content goes in the content/ directory as Markdown files:

+++
title = "My First Post"
date = 2024-12-27
+++

# Hello, World!

This is my first post using Zola.

The +++ section is called front matter—it's TOML by default and contains metadata about your page.

Development Server

Run the development server:

zola serve

Open http://127.0.0.1:1111 and you'll see your site. Changes trigger automatic rebuilds and browser refresh.

Building for Production

zola build

Your complete site will be in the public/ directory, ready to deploy anywhere.

Next Steps

Happy building!