The History of Static vs Dynamic Websites

For much of the past 30-40 years, the technology behind how the web operates has largely remained the same. The standard model of a web page, sent to your web browser via a server in the form of HTML and displayed via the DOM has been the foundation of nearly all websites since the internet began. In the web 1.0 days, web pages were incredibly simple – often made up of basic text and images with very little interactivity or dynamic content. These pages, often referred to as ‘static’ web pages, were called so due to their simplistic, unchangable nature. The page you were served was the page you received, with little to no state changes, built in HTML, CSS & javascript purely on the client side, with no content being rendered on a backend server.

As the web evolved and the internet became a greater force in everyday life, the demands and use-case of websites also grew. People needed access to websites with increased functionality – access to databases, dynamic and changeable content, and increased interactivity that became the standard of a what a modern website was. Support for these kind of features usually had to be supported by the power of a server. This era saw the rise in PHP-based platforms like WordPress becoming the king of user-generated websites, bridging the gap with client & server side dynamic content generation. With WordPress, you can create dynamic websites that allow you to build templates, connect databases and create a site with multiple different interactive features – particularly blogs, which is what primarily drove it to become such a popular tool. This accessibility, combined with the breadth of customisable features available via plugins made WordPress almost unrivalled as a web-building platform for the past 20 years.

Over time however, even more technological advances have been made, with greater challenges presenting themselves. A large majority of the world no longer access the internet via a traditional desktop computer setup. Smart devices such as phones, watches and speakers all access the internet, and require content to be served and displayed to the user in multiple ways. These days websites need to be responsive, and Social Media platforms have grown beyond what the traditional web browser model can sustain. Javascript-based frameworks such as React, Angular, Vue & Svelte have completely revolutionised how content and applications are built and delivered, and this growing demand for high performance and multi-platform content is at odds with the feature-heavy, mutable builds of a traditional dynamic website.

This is where the modern Static site has now begun to shine. Instead of relying on a server to render and deliver sections of content in chunks to a browser – Static sites are fully built, immutable and ready to go directly from the client / browser. This allows them to be super speedy, perform excellently (because you don’t have to wait for the page content to be rendered from a server), with minimal page size. This lack of client-server communication also makes Static sites significantly more secure, as they have less vulnerabilities open during the page rendering process.

Static vs Dynamic Web Pages – What’s the Difference? By Academind

A common build for a modern Static Site is what’s known as a JAMStack – which stands for Javascript, API & Markup. You can find out more about the JAMStack in greater detail over on their website, here: https://jamstack.org/

One of the major key differences between a JAMStack based Static site with a Headless CMS and a traditional all-in-one full stack web platform like WordPress is the customisability. There are multiple different platforms, frameworks, languages and APIs that you can choose to create your static-based site, and you can tailor it to what works best for your business and platform. Snipcart have a brilliant visual diagram example of what this looks like here:

The end result of this is a website with tons of scalability and high performance. However, this also comes at the expense of user accessibility. Whilst the platforms are relatively simple to update and create content on, the initial setup of a JAMStack website requires you to understand how all of the different composite parts interact. Whilst static site generators such as Next.JS, Hugo, Astro & Eleventy streamline the initial setup and deployment process with sites such as Netlify and CMS platforms like Decap and Contentful; knowledge on how to set up and create content for these sites requires coding and development experience, something that the average website user or business owner might not necessarily have.

With the right development partner, a static site with a Headless CMS could be an incredible solution for your business, provided you have the tools and setup to add content to the site via an accessible platform.

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Heres an overall summary of the Pro’s and Con’s of Static Sites to help you assess if they can be the right solution for your business:

The Pros of Static Websites & Headless CMS

• Excellent Performance and incredible page speeds, even on sites with high page counts due to the serverless nature of how content is built and delivered to the browser.
• Highly Secure and safe – Without the server-browser connection, there are significantly less vulnerabilities available for people to exploit, making your website much safer and less open to attacks.
• Customisable and tailored to your business – You can choose the technologies, tech stack, frameworks, platforms and APIs you want to add to your website instead of being tied to one platform or provider.

The Cons of Static Websites & Headless CMS

• Steep Knowledge Curve for required for Setup – You need a good understanding of code, how frameworks and APIs work to ensure that your site is set up and optimised efficiently
• Lots of Moving Parts – Although the site removes the server, having lots of different platforms and APIs supporting your site requires management and upkeep to ensure every aspect is kept up to date and well maintained.
• Potentially Less User-friendly – Depending on the backend / CMS, a custom Static & Headless website can potentially be less accessible for users or members of staff to populate and work on, compared to a more established platform like WordPress.

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At Brand Ambition, we’re dedicated to creating the best solutions for our clients, and we’re always looking into new and cutting-edge technology to help people get the most out of their SME’s and Businesses. If this sounds like it could be a solution for your business, get in touch and see how we can make a difference for your website.