---
title: "Jekyll on Heroku"
description: "Jekyll can be deployed on Heroku to use its plugin system, but relying on jekyll serve would use Ruby’s single-threaded WEBrick rather than a production-oriented web server. The setup installs Ruby with ruby-install and chruby, then installs Bundler and Jekyll, creates a site, and tracks it in Git. Heroku’s official Ruby buildpack handles dependencies and runs a Rake assets:precompile task that executes jekyll build, while the Static buildpack serves the generated _site/ directory according to static.json. The example pins Ruby 2.4.2, adds Rake, enables clean URLs and HTTPS, and completes with a successful deployment of the generated site to a Heroku URL."
---

# Jekyll on Heroku

[Heroku](https://yomu.fyi/company/heroku) · Caleb Hearth · Dec 13, 2017

**Type:** Tutorial

## Summary

Jekyll can be deployed on Heroku to use its plugin system, but relying on jekyll serve would use Ruby’s single-threaded WEBrick rather than a production-oriented web server. The setup installs Ruby with ruby-install and chruby, then installs Bundler and Jekyll, creates a site, and tracks it in Git. Heroku’s official Ruby buildpack handles dependencies and runs a Rake assets:precompile task that executes jekyll build, while the Static buildpack serves the generated \_site/ directory according to static.json. The example pins Ruby 2.4.2, adds Rake, enables clean URLs and HTTPS, and completes with a successful deployment of the generated site to a Heroku URL.

## Context

The setup is motivated by running Jekyll on Heroku while retaining Jekyll’s plugin system, instead of relying on jekyll serve and its Ruby built-in, single-threaded WEBrick server for a public site.

## Approach / What changed

Use the Ruby and Static Heroku buildpacks together. The Ruby buildpack installs the Gemfile dependencies and runs a Rake assets:precompile task that executes jekyll build; the Static buildpack serves the resulting \_site/ directory, configured through static.json.

## Takeaways

- static.json sets clean\_urls and https\_only to true and uses \_site/ as the serving root.
- The Rakefile defines assets:precompile to execute jekyll build, allowing Heroku’s Ruby buildpack to generate the complete static site during deployment.
- The example pins Ruby to 2.4.2, adds Rake to the Gemfile, and finishes with a successful Heroku deployment using both buildpacks.

**Tags:** [Deployment](https://yomu.fyi/topic/deployment), [Heroku](https://yomu.fyi/topic/heroku), [Jekyll](https://yomu.fyi/topic/jekyll), [Ruby](https://yomu.fyi/topic/ruby)

- Source: [Heroku](https://www.heroku.com/blog/jekyll-on-heroku)
- Source URL: https://www.heroku.com/blog/jekyll-on-heroku
- Ingested by Yomu: 2026-09-09T14:25:40.485Z

[Read original post](https://www.heroku.com/blog/jekyll-on-heroku)