Save money on hosting, enhance security and improve SEO with Static Sites | SRC Innovations

Static Sites aren’t anything new and go back to the very beginning of the world wide web so in this article we explore why many companies are giving static sites a second go as well as talk about the most popular tools for creating modern static sites.

A brief history on static sites

Traditional static sites were the only websites on the early internet even the Original Homepage of the World Wide Web was a static website. Essentially the web itself was static. But as technology became more sophisticated and business and consumer needs grew the limitations of the static web were exceeded. Around the same time SQL powered relational-databases were hitting the mainstream so business moved towards using databases to store and manage their content. This in-turn bought about the age of the web where new CMS products (content management systems) such as WordPress, Drupal and Joomla surged to prominence and the web as we know it today took shape. These new dynamic websites were able to de-couple the design of a website and the content making it possible to simplify websites as a collection of templates or partial templates i.e. headers / footers and stitch them together with the content upon request of the user. This lead to the rise of user-generated content or Web 2.0. The increasing complexity of the modern web hasn’t come without some drawbacks namely:

• Higher hosting costs — Dynamic sites are complex and have many components all of which require configuring and hosting.
• Lower performance — Each request requiring another code execution from the server.
• Lower security — Mass adoption of prominent CMS products luring cyber criminals to find and share common vulnerabilities.

Modern static sites over-come the limitation of their primitive predecessors as well as addresses the downside of dynamic websites with the advent of Static Site Generators (SSGs).

What is a Static Site Generator?

A Static Site Generator (SSG) is a library or framework which takes code files as input and compiles it to make static HTML documents that can be hosted directly on the Internet. Modern SSGs are an excellent choice for marketing websites, blogs, portfolios and even e-commerce sites. Modern SSGs have the following advantages:

• Templating — reusable UI elements and layout decoupled from content.
• Common content syntax — The advent of markdown has lead to a content authoring revolution.
• Lower hosting cost — Only requires the hosting of static HTML files.
• Lighting fast performance — very low latency from server requests thanks to lightweight output from SSGs.
• Better SEO — Improved performance of static sites means they rank higher than their heavier competitors.
• Improved security — Static sites have no backend for would be cyber criminals to exploit.
• Improved developer experience through modern tooling and logical architecture.

Top Static Site Generators

Now that we know what static site generators are lets talk about some of the most popular Static Site Generator frameworks.

Next.JS

Next.JS is arguably the most popular of this list but Next.JS is not limited to only being a static site generator it can also be used to create complex web applications offering Server-Side Rendering (SSR), Client-Side Rendering (CSR) all powered by React. Developers are able to control the level of SSR / CSR on a per-page level which makes Next.JS extremely powerful for a wide range of projects.

Features:

• Powered by React.
• Server-Side (SSR) & Client-Side Rendering (CSR).
• Incremental Static Rendering.
• Dynamic HTML Streaming.

Gatsby

Gatsby is another React powered static site generator it also supports deferred static generation (DSG), and server-side rendering (SSR) and boasts an excellent developer experience. As of version 4, Gatsby now gives developers the power to do static site generation at a per-page level allowing for more granular control of your project.

Features:

• Powered by React.
• Server-Side (SSR) & Client-Side Rendering (CSR).
• Deferred static generation (DSG).
• Static site generation (SSG) on a per-page level.

Hugo

Hugo is a popular static site generator which is powered by Go. Hugo boasts lightening fast performance claiming its build process takes less than 1 millisecond per-page. Hugo also claims to be a “content strategist’s dream” with unlimited content types, taxonomies, menus, dynamic API-driven content and extends traditional markdown with Hugo shortcodes to add even more flexibility for writing and managing content.

Features:

• Powered by Go.
• Lightweight and lightening fast performance.
• Markdown support.
• Pagination.
• Taxonomies.
• Internationalisation (i18n).
• Integrated Google Analytics support.
• Over 300 themes.

SvelteKit

Powered by Svelte SvelteKit is similar to NextJS in that its usefulness as a framework isn’t limited to only static site generation it can also be used for complex web applications featuring server-side rendering, client side routing and a number of adapters for different deployment targets e.g., Node.js, Vercel, and more to make deployments simple.

Features:

• Powered by Svelte.
• Dynamic Server-Side Rendering.
• CSRF protection.
• Client side routing.

Astro

Astro is a JavaScript UI Framework agnostic content driven web framework meaning it can be combined with a UI framework of your choice or leverage Astro components which are template components which render plain HTML so no client side JavaScript improving performance to the end user.

Features:

• Super light weight.
• Excellent documentation and developer quality of life.
• Beginner friendly.
• Server-Side Rendering as default
• No JavaScript by default — improving performance and saving devices of the client.
• Lightening fast performance.
• JavaScript library / framework agnostic — write components your way.
• Improved performance with the utilisation of component islands.

Eleventy

Eleventy is a relatively newcomer to the SSG space but is gaining popularity due to its excellent developer experience and impressive performance. Elleventy is built using vanilla JavaScript and Node.JS so is considered fairly easy for beginners and keeps the project lightweight compared to its competitors.

Features:

• Lightweight.
• Beginner friendly.
• High performance.
• Independent template languages.
• JavaScript library / framework agnostic.

Choosing a Static Site Generator

When it comes to selecting which Static Site Generator is right for your particular project there is a few considerations to keep in mind.

• Programming Language: Arguably the most important aspect to consider is the programming language the Static Site Generator is built on. Ideally you should choose a SSG that aligns with your existing skill-set.
• Required Features: The features required for your selected project could heavily influence your decision. For example for a simple portfolio or blog site Hugo or Eleventy would be more suitable but if your project requires something more complex you might be better off selecting Astro, Gatsby or Next JS.
• Developer Experience and Community Support: This depends on your level of experience but if you’re somewhat of a beginner you might be better off selecting Astro or Eleventy as both of these project have excellent documentation, community support and developer quality of life. Also worth considering that projects that lack community support might also have a shorter life span than their more popular counterparts.

Putting it all together

So in this article we’ve learned a brief history of the web. We learned about Static Site Generators, their use, and their advantages. We learned about the top frameworks for creating modern static websites and lastly we highlighted the considerations to be made when selecting which Static Site Generator you should use.

Modern Static Generators offer unique advantages when they are applied to the correct application. If you’re planning on making your project static and you’re still unsure of what to choose or you’d rather leave the selection process to the experts. Reach out to us as at SRC Innovations, we are more than happy to help.

Originally published at https://blog.srcinnovations.com.au on June 30, 2024.