Bridgetown Review and Features

Sourcing data is very straightforward in terms of local files. Default config comes with support for posts in _posts folder. What makes making blog-aware websites very fast.

To fetch data from an external source you need to know the basics of Ruby, as it required writing a function (plugin in fact) which will be run during the build process, for example:

class LoadPostsFromAPI < SiteBuilder
  def build
    get "https://domain.com/posts.json" do |data|
      data.each do |post|
        doc "#{post[:slug]}.md" do
          front_matter post
          categories post[:taxonomy][:category].map { |category| category[:slug] }
          date Bridgetown::Utils.parse_date(post[:date])
          content post[:body]
        end
      end
    end
  end
end

File structure

├── frontend
│		├── javascript
│		└── styles
├── node_modules
├── plugins
├── src
│		├── _components
│		├── _data
│		├── _layouts
│		├── _posts
│		├── 404.html
│		└── index.md
├── bridgetown.config.yml
├── Gemfile
├── Gemfile.lock
├── start.js
├── sync.js
├── yarn.lock
├── webpack.config.js
└── package.json

Ecosystem

One of the core features of Bridgetown is that it can be extended by custom plugins. Starting from fetching data from external API, adding support for new markup or template language to taking full control over the build process.

Bridgetown despite being very fresh, has a pretty lively Discord community. Everyone is welcome to ask questions or just chat.

Showcase

How to get started

First, you need to install Ruby, that's the harder step if you don't have installed. You can find here instructions on how to make it done.

Next, you can install Bridgetown

gem install bridgetown -N

To create a new Bridgetown website, run:

bridgetown new mysite

The build is a very simple process, you need to run only one command and the production bundle will be created in the "output" folder which can be later pushed to any static files hosting provider, eg: Netlify or Vercel.

Conclusion

Bridgetown is still way behind the competitors, but it's worth keeping an eye on. Especially, if you like Ruby. It's still in its early days but in the future, it can bring some fresh fruit.