--- title: "Migrating your Jekyll site to Netlify | Netlify" description: "Realize the speed, agility and performance of a scalable, composable web architecture with Netlify. Explore the composable web platform now!" source: "https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/05/11/migrating-your-jekyll-site-to-netlify/" last_updated: "2026-07-16T14:08:24.000Z" --- **This guide was most recently updated on July 24th, 2018. Below are the package versions used:** - Ruby 2.4.3 - github-pages 73 Screenshots may be outdated. * * * This post will cover how to move your Jekyll site from GitHub Pages to Netlify in just a few steps. If you have generated your Jekyll site using GitHub pages or forked a template there is a good chance you do not have a Gemfile. This is because GitHub pages will infer dependencies for you. If you would like to build your project outside of GitHub a Gemfile is needed and simple to create. In your GitHub repo create a new file with the name `Gemfile` and add the following content to it: ``` source "https://rubygems.org"gem 'github-pages' ``` The github-pages gem includes Jekyll, along with other dependencies and plugins you had available to your site on GitHub Pages. Since Netlify also needs to know what version of Ruby to run, put your version string in a file called `/.ruby-version` and we’ll use that version! If you don’t know, use version `2.4.3`. Once you have a Gemfile and a .ruby-version file, you can now connect your site to Netlify without issue. [Adding a new site with Git](https://app.netlify.com/start) is not a requirement for adding a site, but it’s strongly recommend to take advantage of all of Netlify’s continuous deployment features. !\[connect-git\](/v3/img/blog/Screenshot 2017-05-11 07.10.17.png) Once your site is connected, you can find your Repository from the list GitHub repos. There is also a convenient search box in case you have more repositories than the page can fit. !\[repo-search\](/v3/img/blog/Screenshot 2017-05-11 07.10.39.png) Finally, you will just need to add the Jekyll build command and build location. For Jekyll that is `jekyll build` for the command and `_site` for the location. !\[build-settings\](/v3/img/blog/Screenshot 2017-05-11 07.10.04.png) You now have your Jekyll site on Netlify and can take advantage of some great features, like [deploy previews](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_4UL9oAcVE) and free [custom domains](https://docs.netlify.com/domains-https/custom-domains/) with [SSL](https://docs.netlify.com/domains-https/https-ssl/). [This article](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/01/31/best-practices-getting-started-with-netlify/) has a good list of things to configure after you deploy your site. If you made it this far and do not have a Jekyll site to try this out with, you can try out [my Jekyll template](https://app.netlify.com/start/deploy?repository=https://github.com/bdougie/portfolio-template). ### Share - [X (fka Twitter)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Migrating your Jekyll site to Netlify&url=https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/05/11/migrating-your-jekyll-site-to-netlify//) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.netlify.com%2Fblog%2F2017%2F05%2F11%2Fmigrating-your-jekyll-site-to-netlify%2F%2F) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/05/11/migrating-your-jekyll-site-to-netlify//) - [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Migrating your Jekyll site to Netlify+https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/05/11/migrating-your-jekyll-site-to-netlify//) * * * ### Tags - [Jekyll](/blog/tags/jekyll/) - [how-to](/blog/tags/how-to/) - [Tutorial](/blog/tags/tutorial/) ## Keep reading ![](/_astro/3f45eb6eda4ea8814be310e3df4a7883a5bd9ba0-1200x675_ZcBDUS.webp) Guides & Tutorials May 15, 2026 [ ### How to build a real-time AI chatbot in minutes with Netlify Agent Runners (no backend) ](/blog/how-to-build-a-real-time-ai-chatbot-in-minutes-with-netlify-agent-runners-no-backend) - ![Profile picture of Nahrin Jalal](/_astro/f0e7c8f227a03fe58340c99ef5439d5a896c0733-272x272_Z23kDpD.webp) Nahrin Jalal ![](/_astro/8fe9e8a23f944c9912003233d99a2df7fee637cf-1600x900_Z1gMhmf.webp) Guides & Tutorials May 15, 2026 [ ### Tracking AI search traffic: how to use Netlify Log Drains to maximize AEO ](/blog/tracking-ai-search-traffic) - ![Profile picture of Nahrin Jalal](/_astro/f0e7c8f227a03fe58340c99ef5439d5a896c0733-272x272_Z23kDpD.webp) Nahrin Jalal ## Recent posts News & Announcements July 14, 2026 [ ### More headroom, a lower per-credit rate, and a bill you can predict: introducing new Pro plan tiers ](/blog/new-pro-plan-tiers) - ![Profile picture of Gehrig Kunz](/_astro/b4e9f58d914d1334ea70d53ea55a1f26b26f1445-512x512_17SwOI.webp) Gehrig Kunz News & Announcements July 13, 2026 [ ### Netlify inside of Claude Design ](/blog/netlify-inside-of-claude-design) - ![Profile picture of Sean Roberts](/_astro/bbf2243f8171dbddd80ab2103622106cef84d125-512x512_Z1d2LKE.webp) Sean Roberts News & Announcements June 25, 2026 [ ### Netlify Functions, designed for Agent Experience ](/blog/netlify-functions-designed-for-agent-experience) - ![Profile picture of Eduardo Bouças](/_astro/52958f21e8450baf6d8e60302341a984e220c0cd-512x512_13VDlu.webp) Eduardo Bouças ![](/_astro/3f255b372fa958df35802666ee33b4609b2d71bd-1200x1586_1VtE2D.webp) ### How do the best dev and marketing teams work together? 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