Are Static Site Generators The NExt Big Thing - We think so

Introduction

Today, there are over a billion websites on the internet. That isn’t so surprising when you think about how accessible and easy it is to create your website today. However, only 400 million of those websites are active. Developing and running a website is not always as easy as it sounds, but we are here to help. If you’re reading this, we bet you’d prefer your website to be among the 400 million active ones. So let’s figure out the best way to do that!

There are quite a few ways to create a website, some more popular than others. However, the popular ones are not always the right choice. Therefore, we want to introduce you to a hidden gem in the website-development world.

Static versus dynamic websites

Now, you’ve probably heard about static site generators before. But most guides on it are probably far too complicated. So let’s put it simply. For the point of this guide, we’ll say that there are two kinds of websites: static and dynamic.

The first website created by Tim Berner-Lee was static. Although at the beginning he had some restrictions and the documents were not stylized and organized, it later grew into a carefully organized design with complex navigation. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to separate the website’s content from the design because HTML and CSS were not doing the job.

Later on, SQL-based relational databases started going mainstream. As a result, many applications began to create websites whose pages would be separated into reusable parts (e.g., headers and footers). The website’s content could be put into the database to some extent. Although they had flaws, these were the first original static website generators used to build websites from templates and parts.

Simply, a static site means that what you see is all you get. So, therefore, you write out your static HTML files and upload them onto your web server. Then, when somebody wants to access those files, the web server loads them in a few seconds. And just like that, people can use your website.

A dynamic site works differently. It contains constantly changing information, depending on the visitor, location, time zone, language, and other factors. Therefore, it requires much more than using HTML code. To show visitors different content every day, combining client-side and server-side scripting is necessary. However, dynamic websites, like WordPress, are easy to set up, but they require a lot of maintenance, and they are generally more complicated.

Why are static generators so popular today?

Static websites are older than dynamic ones, but they are far from outdated. Ever since the emergence of JAMstack, static websites have made a comeback.

Jamstack is a web application model based on three components hidden in its name: JavaScript, APIs, and Markup.

Born as part of the static web movement, Jamstack became revolutionary in web development. Everyone in the web development world knows that building a site and maintaining it is not easy, with as few problems as possible. Jamstack and its philosophy aim to make the web faster with new and modern tools. Relying on static websites’ advantages, developers can create sites with better performance and security.

Jamstack websites have files already compiled and served to the browser to avoid inconvenient development impediments and excess maintenance.

Let’s get back to our comparison of static and dynamic websites. We’ve already said that static sites have had a breakthrough. But now, they’re better than dynamic websites in many areas.

Why? The answer is simple - browsers are growing. When the first search engine was created, it couldn’t display anything more than a link and hypertext. Today’s browsers can do it all! They can run full-fledged web applications, handle peer-to-peer connections to other browsers, store data locally, and more.

Also, technology is changing and improving. For example, the development of mobile phones allowed users to access the internet easily. The ever-evolving technology is why website performance is A MUST. This is because users no longer have the patience to wait more than a few seconds for the site to load. No matter how much you optimize a dynamic website, it will never give the same results as static ones.

Static websites eliminate performance issues. If you are building a dynamic page, an efficient database query is crucial because it must be fast to run for each HTTP request. Even if you did it perfectly, some requests could still lead to cache destruction, the shutdown of the entire system, and other problems. With static sites, there are fewer performance errors for end users.

Developer tools (languages and libraries) are more advanced. Businesses want to optimize website performance beyond the limits of the database-driven website. They want to combine languages and features, make their sites faster, and their users satisfied.

Now that we’ve covered the basics let’s talk about static site generators and how they work.

A static site generator is a tool that is just as complicated as dynamic sites and pours all the content into templates in the same way. However, it saves the result to a file with a .html suffix, converting the data into static web pages hosted on the same type of static web server. So you copy some files and let the basic web server do the work!

Why should you use a static site generator?

1. Compared to traditional dynamic websites (WordPress), websites built with static site generators have significantly improved performance and speed. Moreover, it is so easy to use and host static sites.
2. Security issues will become a thing of the past because there is a vastly reduced area for harmful attacks. In essence, there is no database for hackers to exploit.
3. Apart from being fast, site generators will lower your hosting bills significantly.
4. HTML-based sites don’t use considerable server resources since they don’t need scripts to retrieve information. Due to this, static websites scale easily without overloading the server.
5. You can trace any change made to the website. All changes go through the code and are visible in your control system.

Best static site generators of 2021

There are too many options when it comes to static site generators and going through them is not an enjoyable job. We have taken care of it for you. This is our roundup of the best static site generators:

So let’s wrap everything up. We have learned that static sites have pre-coded nature, which makes them faster than dynamic. However, with Static Site Generators, you don’t have to type a single line of code. The generators do everything for you. Static sites can have dynamic components such as comments, feedback, and search, so you’re not losing any key components of your website. And you will be gaining a lot. Take our advice and see for yourself!

There are too many options for static site generators. We have taken care of it for you. Listed below is our roundup of the best static site generators:

1. Hugo

This is a popular site generator with amazing speed and flexibility. It is easy to use and install and contains hundreds of themes and templates. We use it for brochure sites that don’t require a concept of state. Making a change to your website requires time as the site needs to rebuild after every commit, and Hugo does its best to be the fastest at this, especially for larger websites.

2. Gatsby

Gatsby is more than a static site generator. It is a progressive web app that can work offline and even be added to your mobile home screen. Gatsby is extensible and has a rich plugin ecosystem that allows you to use data from multiple sources. It offers many website templates that you can customize easily. Don’t worry about handling images, routing, and linking; Gatsby is equipped with elements that make these things more straightforward.

3. Next.js

Next.js is a versatile generator that allows its users to decide how to fetch the data. You can have both static and dynamic pages at your disposal. With Next.js, you can create static sites with zero configuration using many of its features, making your static site scalable and improving performance. Good knowledge of JavaScript and React will come in handy when using this generator.

4. Jekyll

If you want a simple generator and a perfect solution for personal websites, then Jekyll is the pick of the bunch! It is one of the oldest generators but still popular. It contains a wide range of plugins that allow you to add features to your site. Another feature Jekyll has to offer is free hosting on GitHub pages. You can save your content in the GitHub repository, a code cloud drive. GitHub will run code for you and make your life way easier.

5. Eleventy (11ty)

Eleventy comes with the same simplicity as Jekyll. Even if you’re not a professional and have basic knowledge, you can create amazing websites using 11ty. It has templates that are not limited to a specific language. Moreover, Eleventy adapts to you and supports more than ten different template languages. It takes 30 minutes to build your site with 11ty, and you get excellent performance, elegance, and speed.

Conclusion

So let’s wrap everything up. We have learned that static sites have pre-coded nature, which makes them faster than dynamic. However, with Static Site Generators, you don’t have to type a single line of code.

The generators do everything for you. Static sites can have dynamic components such as comments, feedback, and search, so you’re not losing any key components of your website. And you will be gaining a lot. Take our advice and see for yourself!