deploy-a-zola-site.md

---
pcx_content_type: how-to
title: Deploy a Zola site
---

# Deploy a Zola site

[Zola](https://www.getzola.org/) is a fast static site generator in a single binary with everything built-in. In this guide, you will create a new Zola application and deploy it using Cloudflare Pages. You will use the `zola` CLI to create a new Zola site.

## Installing Zola

First, [install](https://www.getzola.org/documentation/getting-started/installation/) the `zola` CLI, using the specific instructions for your operating system below:

### macOS (Homebrew)

If you use the package manager [Homebrew](https://brew.sh), run the `brew install` command in your terminal to install Zola:

```sh
$ brew install zola
```

### Windows (Chocolatey)

If you use the package manager [Chocolatey](https://chocolatey.org/), run the `choco install` command in your terminal to install Zola:

```sh
$ choco install zola
```

### Windows (Scoop)

If you use the package manager [Scoop](https://scoop.sh/), run the `scoop install` command in your terminal to install Zola:

```sh
$ scoop install zola
```

### Linux (pkg)

Your Linux distro's package manager may include Zola. If this is the case, you can install it directly using your distro's package manager -- for example, using `pkg`, run the following command in your terminal:

```sh
$ pkg install zola
```

If your package manager does not include Zola or you would like to download a release directly, refer to the [**Manual**](/pages/framework-guides/deploy-a-zola-site/#manual-installation) section below.

### Manual installation

The Zola GitHub repository contains pre-built versions of the Zola command-line tool for various operating systems, which can be found on [the Releases page](https://github.com/getzola/zola/releases).

For more instruction on installing these releases, refer to [Zola's install guide](https://www.getzola.org/documentation/getting-started/installation/).

## Creating a new project

With Zola installed, create a new project by running the `zola init` command in your terminal using the default template:

```sh
$ zola init my-zola-project
```

Upon running `zola init`, you will prompted with three questions:

1.  What is the URL of your site? (https://example.com):
    You can leave this one blank for now.

2.  Do you want to enable Sass compilation? \[Y/n]: Y

3.  Do you want to enable syntax highlighting? \[y/N]: y

4.  Do you want to build a search index of the content? \[y/N]: y

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## Deploying with Cloudflare Pages

To deploy your site to Pages:

1. Log in to the [Cloudflare dashboard](https://dash.cloudflare.com/) and select your account.
2. In Account Home, select **Workers & Pages** > **Create application** > **Pages** > **Connect to Git**.
3. Select the new GitHub repository that you created and, in the **Set up builds and deployments** section, provide the following information:

<div>

| Configuration option | Value        |
| -------------------- | ------------ |
| Production branch    | `main`       |
| Build command        | `zola build` |
| Build directory      | `public`     |

</div>

Below the configuration, make sure to set the **Environment Variables (advanced)** for specifying the `ZOLA_VERSION`.

For example, `ZOLA_VERSION`: `0.17.2`.

After configuring your site, you can begin your first deploy. You should see Cloudflare Pages installing `zola`, your project dependencies, and building your site, before deploying it.

{{<Aside type="note">}}

For the complete guide to deploying your first site to Cloudflare Pages, refer to the [Get started guide](/pages/get-started/).

{{</Aside>}}

After deploying your site, you will receive a unique subdomain for your project on `*.pages.dev`.

You can now add that subdomain as the `base_url` in your `config.toml` file.

For example:

```yaml
# The URL the site will be built for
base_url = "https://my-zola-project.pages.dev"
```

Every time you commit new code to your Zola site, Cloudflare Pages will automatically rebuild your project and deploy it. You will also get access to [preview deployments](/pages/platform/preview-deployments/) on new pull requests, so you can preview how changes look to your site before deploying them to production.

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