Deploy a Jekyll Site on SnapDeploy: Build in Ruby, Serve with nginx, Any Plugin

1.Add the Dockerfile

The build stage installs your Gemfile and runs jekyll build with JEKYLL_ENV=production; the serve stage is nginx with only _site inside. Pin the Ruby image to what you use locally.

FROM ruby:3.3-slim AS build
RUN apt-get update \
 && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends build-essential git \
 && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
WORKDIR /site
COPY Gemfile Gemfile.lock* ./
RUN bundle install --jobs 4
COPY . .
RUN JEKYLL_ENV=production bundle exec jekyll build --destination /site/_site

FROM nginx:1.27-alpine
COPY nginx.conf /etc/nginx/conf.d/default.conf
COPY --from=build /site/_site /usr/share/nginx/html
EXPOSE 80

Add a .dockerignore with _site, .jekyll-cache, vendor and .git, and list Dockerfile, nginx.conf and README.md under exclude: in _config.yml so Jekyll does not copy them into the site.

2.Add nginx.conf for pretty permalinks and the 404 page

A bare nginx image returns 403 for directory URLs and its own 404 page. This config serves folder/index.html for permalink: pretty URLs and your Jekyll 404.html for misses.

server {
    listen       80;
    server_name  _;
    root         /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index        index.html;
    error_page   404 /404.html;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }
}

This is also where redirects, security headers and long cache lifetimes for hashed assets go, which is the main reason to prefer a container over a Pages host for some sites.

3.Deploy from GitHub

Deploy Your Application → GitHub → the repository and branch. The Dockerfile is detected and port 80 is read from its EXPOSE line. No environment variables are needed. The build installs the gems and runs Jekyll; the sample site builds in about a minute and the site is at https://<name>.containers.snapdeploy.app. Every push to the branch rebuilds it. If your site generates absolute links (feed, sitemap), set url: in _config.yml to that address or to your custom domain.