HTML5 Boilerplate Alternatives for Starting a Modern Site

HTML5 Boilerplate (H5BP) is the front-end template that gave a generation of sites their starting index.html, base CSS and sensible meta tags. It still exists and still installs. The GitHub repo has 57.6k stars, only 7 open issues, and a quick start of npx create-html5-boilerplate new-site. But the newest version on npm is 9.0.1 from April 16, 2024, and 9.0.0 before it came out in December 2023.

That pace is fine for a template. The harder question is if a static HTML starter is still what your project needs. Most new sites today begin from a scaffolding command that adds a dev server, bundling and, often, components. The six starters below range from a single HTML file to a full React framework, so pick by how much tooling you want.

Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.

Quick comparison

Vite

Vite keeps the H5BP mental model: your index.html sits at the project root. The guide puts it this way: "during development Vite is a server, and index.html is the entry point to your application." Run npm create vite@latest, choose vanilla or vanilla-ts, and you get that page plus hot reload and an optimized build.

The same command offers templates for Vue, React, Preact, Lit, Svelte, Solid and Qwik, so the project can grow without switching tools. Vite 8.0.0 arrived on March 12, 2026, and 8.3.6 was published on November 5, 2026, per npm.

Best for: Developers who liked H5BP's plain HTML start but want modern bundling and a dev server.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT licence

Watch out for:

• It needs a recent Node.js. The guide says "Vite requires Node.js version 20.19+, 22.12+", and some templates ask for more, so older CI images may fail.

Official site: Vite.

Astro

For marketing sites, blogs and docs, Astro is the starter many teams now reach for. Pages are written as .astro files or Markdown and render to HTML at build time, with JavaScript added only to the parts that need it. You start with npm create astro@latest. Version 7.0.0 landed on June 22, 2026, and 7.4.7 followed on November 5, per npm.

Ownership changed this year. Astro's own January 16, 2026 post announced it was joining Cloudflare and said "Astro stays open-source and MIT-licensed", with support for deployment targets other than Cloudflare.

Best for: Content-heavy sites where fast static HTML matters more than app-style interactivity.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT licence

Watch out for:

• Astro 7 sets a high Node floor. The package lists node >=22.23.4 in its engines field on npm.
• It is now owned by a hosting company. The team promises to keep other deploy targets, but watch if Cloudflare-specific features get priority.

Official site: Astro.

Build Awesome (Eleventy)

Eleventy turns templates and Markdown into plain HTML files with no client JavaScript unless you add it, which is close to how H5BP sites were built by hand. The project became Build Awesome on March 3, 2026, as part of Font Awesome, which it joined in September 2024. The npm package is still @11ty/eleventy, at 3.1.8 from November 3, 2026.

The homepage calls it stable and says only three of its 228 releases since December 2017 needed Eleventy-specific changes from developers. You start with npx @11ty/eleventy --serve on Node.js 18 or newer.

Best for: Blogs and small sites built from Markdown and templates, with minimal upgrade churn.

Pricing:

• Free and open source
• Build Awesome Pro is funded through a Kickstarter with 838 backers; the rename post says Pro "will not be required" to use the tool, and no price is listed

Watch out for:

• The rename is recent, so docs, blog posts and search results mix the Eleventy and Build Awesome names, and a 4.0 alpha is already out alongside 3.1.8.
• It has no opinion on CSS or JavaScript bundling. You add your own asset pipeline, which Vite and Astro include.

Official site: Build Awesome (Eleventy).

Bootstrap starter template

If you used H5BP as a single file to copy, Bootstrap's quick start is the nearest thing. The docs give a complete index.html with the doctype, charset and viewport meta tags, plus jsDelivr links for Bootstrap 5.3.8 CSS and the JavaScript bundle that includes Popper. Paste it and you have a grid, typography and components with no install.

The snippet ships with Subresource Integrity hashes, and the docs remind you to update the integrity attribute when you change versions. For lighter CSS starting points, see our Skeleton alternatives.

Best for: Prototypes, internal pages and quick demos where a build step is overkill.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT licence

Watch out for:

• You get one HTML file and nothing else. There is no favicon set, 404 page or build script of the kind H5BP includes.
• The template targets 5.3.8. Bootstrap 6, in alpha since October 8, 2026, is ESM-only and renames responsive classes, so the snippet will change.

Official site: Bootstrap starter template. Our listing: Bootstrap starter template.

SvelteKit

SvelteKit is Svelte's app framework, and npx sv create my-app scaffolds it. The docs say the CLI offers to set up basic tooling such as TypeScript. Pages can render on a server or be prerendered to static files with the static adapter, so one starter covers both a brochure site and an app.

It just moved to a new major. SvelteKit 3.0.0 was published on October 1, 2026 and 3.1.1 on October 29, while the sv CLI reached 1.3.0 on November 4, per npm.

Best for: Teams that prefer Svelte and want one starter for both static pages and an app.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT licence

Watch out for:

• Version 3 is about a month old and the docs already carry a "Migrating to SvelteKit v3" guide. Tutorials and add-ons written for v2 may not match.
• It requires Node.js 22.17 or newer according to its npm engines field.

Official site: SvelteKit.

Next.js

Next.js is the framework the React team names first in its post deprecating Create React App. npx create-next-app sets up routing, TypeScript and a build, and the result can be a fully static site: with output: 'export', next build writes HTML files to an out folder that any web server can host.

Version 16.0.0 shipped in October 2025, and 16.4.5 was published on November 3, 2026, per npm. It needs Node.js 20.9 or newer.

Best for: React projects that may start static and later need server features.

Pricing:

• Free, MIT licence
• Hosting is your choice; Vercel is optional

Watch out for:

• Static export drops a lot. The docs list cookies, rewrites, redirects, headers, ISR, Server Actions and default image optimization as unsupported with output: 'export'.
• It is far heavier than H5BP. The next package alone is about 192 MB unpacked on npm.

Official site: Next.js.

How to choose

When to stay with HTML5 Boilerplate

Stay with HTML5 Boilerplate if you want a hand-written site with no framework and you value its defaults more than tooling. The template supports "the latest, stable releases of all major browsers", ships its output in a dist folder, and the low issue count suggests few known problems. For a single landing page, it is still a clean start.

Frequently asked questions