An introduction to Static Site Generators

Let's build a (content) website

Option 1 : static site starting from scratch

• Easy to get started

• Good performance out of the box

• Easy to deploy / host

• Good to learn the fundamentals

• Time consuming

• Not a great Developer Experience (DX)

• Hard to scale / maintain

• How do you manage your content ?

Option 2 : use a "traditional" CMS

client

web server

database server

• Easy to get a "full" website up quickly

• Nice editing experience for your content

• Community / ecosystem to help you

• Deployment & hosting can be complex

• Security can be an issue

• Need to code backend + frontend parts

• You just wanted a banana, but what you got was a gorilla holding the banana and the entire jungle

Option 3 : use a platform

• No coding required !

• Same advantages as the "classic CMS"

• (Very) limited customizability

• You don't own your content

Option 4 : use a static site generator

client

web server

• Great performance

• Good security

• Easy deployment & hosting

• Good DX (templating + clean separation of code and content)

• Poor content-editing experience out of the box

• Dynamic functionalities (e.g. Auth) can be complex to implement

Not (just) for "simple" sites !