summary: 'Looking for a performant, out of the box template, with all the best in web technology to support your blogging needs? Checkout the Tailwind Nextjs Starter Blog template.'
[![Deploy with Vercel](https://vercel.com/button)](https://vercel.com/new/git/external?repository-url=https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog)
> [!CAUTION]
> This is the README of version 1 of the template. It is kept for historical reasons, but is no longer supported. It also serves as a nice example of [Github Alert](https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/writing-on-github/getting-started-with-writing-and-formatting-on-github/basic-writing-and-formatting-syntax#alerts). For the actual documentation, please refer to the [Github repository](https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog).
This is a [Next.js](https://nextjs.org/), [Tailwind CSS](https://tailwindcss.com/) blogging starter template. Probably the most feature-rich Next.js markdown blogging template out there. Comes out of the box configured with the latest technologies to make technical writing a breeze. Easily configurable and customizable. Perfect as a replacement to existing Jekyll and Hugo individual blogs.
Check out the documentation below to get started.
Facing issues? Check the [FAQ page](https://github.com/timlrx/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog/wiki) and do a search on past issues. Feel free to open a new issue if none has been posted previously.
Feature request? Check the past discussions to see if it has been brought up previously. Otherwise, feel free to start a new discussion thread. All ideas are welcomed!
## Examples
- [Demo Blog](https://tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog.vercel.app/) - this repo
- [My personal blog](https://www.timlrx.com) - modified to auto-generate blog posts with dates
- [Aloisdg's cookbook](https://tambouille.vercel.app/) - with pictures and recipes!
- [GautierArcin's demo with next translate](https://tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog-seven.vercel.app/) - includes translation of mdx posts, [source code](https://github.com/GautierArcin/tailwind-nextjs-starter-blog/tree/demo/next-translate)
- [David Levai's digital garden](https://davidlevai.com/) - customized design and added email subscriptions
- [Thinh's Corner](https://thinhcorner.com/) - [customized layout](https://github.com/Th1nhNg0/th1nhng0.vercel.app/blob/5e73a420828d82f01e7147512a2c3273c4ec19f8/layouts/PostLayout.js) with sticky side table of contents
Using the template? Feel free to create a PR and add your blog to this list.
## Motivation
I wanted to port my existing blog to Nextjs and Tailwind CSS but there was no easy out of the box template to use so I decided to create one. Design is adapted from [Tailwindlabs blog](https://github.com/tailwindlabs/blog.tailwindcss.com).
I wanted it to be nearly as feature-rich as popular blogging templates like [beautiful-jekyll](https://github.com/daattali/beautiful-jekyll) and [Hugo Academic](https://github.com/wowchemy/wowchemy-hugo-modules) but with the best of React's ecosystem and current web development's best practices.
## Features
- Easy styling customization with [Tailwind 3.0](https://tailwindcss.com/blog/tailwindcss-v3) and primary color attribute
- Near perfect lighthouse score - [Lighthouse report](https://www.webpagetest.org/result/210111_DiC1_08f3670c3430bf4a9b76fc3b927716c5/)
- Lightweight, 45kB first load JS, uses Preact in production build
- Mobile-friendly view
- Light and dark theme
- Self-hosted font with [Fontsource](https://fontsource.org/)
- Supports [plausible](https://plausible.io/), [simple analytics](https://simpleanalytics.com/) and google analytics
- [MDX - write JSX in markdown documents!](https://mdxjs.com/)
- Server-side syntax highlighting with line numbers and line highlighting via [rehype-prism-plus](https://github.com/timlrx/rehype-prism-plus)
- Math display supported via [KaTeX](https://katex.org/)
- Citation and bibliography support via [rehype-citation](https://github.com/timlrx/rehype-citation)
- Automatic image optimization via [next/image](https://nextjs.org/docs/basic-features/image-optimization)
- Flexible data retrieval with [mdx-bundler](https://github.com/kentcdodds/mdx-bundler)
- Support for tags - each unique tag will be its own page
- Support for multiple authors
- Blog templates
- TOC component
- Support for nested routing of blog posts
- Newsletter component with support for Mailchimp, Buttondown, Convertkit, Klaviyo, Revue, Emailoctopus and Beehiiv
- Supports [giscus](https://github.com/laymonage/giscus), [utterances](https://github.com/utterance/utterances) or disqus
2. Personalize `siteMetadata.js` (site related information)
3. Modify the content security policy in `next.config.js` if you want to use
any analytics provider or a commenting solution other than giscus.
4. Personalize `authors/default.md` (main author)
5. Modify `projectsData.ts`
6. Modify `headerNavLinks.ts` to customize navigation links
7. Add blog posts
8. Deploy on Vercel
## Development
First, run the development server:
```bash
npm start
# or
npm run dev
```
Open [http://localhost:3000](http://localhost:3000) with your browser to see the result.
You can start editing the page by modifying `pages/index.js`. The page auto-updates as you edit the file.
## Extend / Customize
`data/siteMetadata.js` - contains most of the site related information which should be modified for a user's need.
`data/authors/default.md` - default author information (required). Additional authors can be added as files in `data/authors`.
`data/projectsData.js` - data used to generate styled card on the projects page.
`data/headerNavLinks.js` - navigation links.
`data/logo.svg` - replace with your own logo.
`data/blog` - replace with your own blog posts.
`public/static` - store assets such as images and favicons.
`tailwind.config.js` and `css/tailwind.css` - contain the tailwind stylesheet which can be modified to change the overall look and feel of the site.
`css/prism.css` - controls the styles associated with the code blocks. Feel free to customize it and use your preferred prismjs theme e.g. [prism themes](https://github.com/PrismJS/prism-themes).
`components/social-icons` - to add other icons, simply copy an svg file from [Simple Icons](https://simpleicons.org/) and map them in `index.js`. Other icons use [heroicons](https://heroicons.com/).
`components/MDXComponents.js` - pass your own JSX code or React component by specifying it over here. You can then call them directly in the `.mdx` or `.md` file. By default, a custom link and image component is passed.
`layouts` - main templates used in pages.
`pages` - pages to route to. Read the [Next.js documentation](https://nextjs.org/docs) for more information.
`next.config.js` - configuration related to Next.js. You need to adapt the Content Security Policy if you want to load scripts, images etc. from other domains.
summary: 'Looking for a performant, out of the box template, with all the best in web technology to support your blogging needs? Checkout the Tailwind Nextjs Starter Blog template.'
Run `node ./scripts/compose.js` to bootstrap a new post.
Follow the interactive prompt to generate a post with pre-filled front matter.
## Deploy
**Vercel**
The easiest way to deploy the template is to use the [Vercel Platform](https://vercel.com) from the creators of Next.js. Check out the [Next.js deployment documentation](https://nextjs.org/docs/deployment) for more details.
**Netlify / GitHub Pages / Firebase etc.**
As the template uses `next/image` for image optimization, additional configurations have to be made to deploy on other popular static hosting websites like [Netlify](https://www.netlify.com/) or [GitHub Pages](https://pages.github.com/). An alternative image optimization provider such as Imgix, Cloudinary or Akamai has to be used. Alternatively, replace the `next/image` component with a standard `<img>` tag. See [`next/image` documentation](https://nextjs.org/docs/basic-features/image-optimization) for more details.
The API routes used in the newsletter component cannot be used in a static site export. You will need to use a form API endpoint provider and substitute the route in the newsletter component accordingly. Other hosting platforms such as Netlify also offer alternative solutions - please refer to their docs for more information.
## Support
Using the template? Support this effort by giving a star on GitHub, sharing your own blog and giving a shoutout on Twitter or be a project [sponsor](https://github.com/sponsors/timlrx).