I want to examine why I choose to build my website with a static site generator. If you aren’t in the web development world you may not know what “static” means in this context. Let’s clear that up real quick:
Static just means that the content doesn’t change. That’s it. I won’t go into any technical details beyond that because I don’t think they are important to the why. In contrast, a dynamic site (i.e. wordpress), every page you see is generated as you visit it.
Static Sites are Simple.
There are few different ways that static sites are simple.
Since a static website is just a collection of files, all you have to do to host them is put them on a configured web server. Additionally, for the same reason they are also very performant.
You don’t need to run the infrastructure that something like wordpress requires: A database and a server than can process wordpress.
They are more secure in the sense that your attack surface is much smaller than a dynamic site. Once again, you don’t have all the additional components to configure appropriately and manage.
They are easy to make. You have know how to type and write html, css, and javascript. The last two are optional in my opinion. Technically they are all optional with LLMs around.
Static Sites are Cheap
Thanks to their simplicity, they are cheap to host. Often you can find places to host your site for free"
Just to name a few. Not that I recommend these necessarily. I simply prefer to being in control of my stuff and I enjoy the learning opportunities running your own stuff provides.
I host this site on a $5 per month server. I could do it for less—obviously free, but even below $5. Granted it’s not a powerful server. If I got a lot of traffic I would have to pay more. However, I am realistic that I simply don’t get traffic to come see little ol’ me. I simply can’t—nor want to—compete with the virality and memeability of the greater internet. Not to mention most of what I write about is boring or uninteresting to many people.
It’s Probably All you Need
Perhaps this is presumptous. Regardless, I think there are a lot of websites that could probably be done as a static website. Blogs, businesses, portfolios / resumes, etc. If you need email collection, appointments, or anything like that there is probably a service available that will let you embed a form on your site to collect information like that.
Conclusion
These are a few reasons I like static sites, particularly the first two. I hope that I gave you enough information to help you consider if you are going to explore making a website this way. There is a lot of tooling out there that has made it easier than ever to create a beautiful, modern websites that I didn’t cover. Although I will probably write more about how I use Hugo to make this site possible.
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