Your startup has finally stepped out of the garage phase and is ready to hit the market.
The next step in growing your startup is building your online presence, and it all starts with your website. For many beginning businesses, the website is often the first channel to gain followers. There are three key ingredients to great website performance, security, and fantastic content. While content depends on how well you are able to communicate your message with the targeted audience, the performance and security of your website pretty much depend on the tech you use.
It is hardly a surprise that most startup owners choose to go with a WordPress, given that about 35 percent of all websites on the internet are powered with it. It is super-easy to use. It has tens of thousands of amazing themes for you to choose from. It has an extensive plugin market for additional functionalities. And a helpful community of developers and marketers to help you out when you get stuck.
However, the most popular solutions are not always the best. While WordPress has been the king in web development for years, it has many limitations that can seriously hurt your online presence and your business. The most notable ones, the ones you hear about in the news , are related to speed and security.
There is an alternative to WordPress, go static.
What Is Jamstack?
Jamstack is a modern web development architecture that utilizes static site generators, super-fast CDN-powered distribution with back-end microservices to deliver fast performing static websites and solve security and scaling issues.
In traditional web development whenever a user requests a page, a server first queries a database and combines the result with data from the page’s markup and plugins to generate an HTML document in the browser (oversimplified WordPress workflow).
Jamstack websites, on the other hand, serve static files immediately when a request is made.
People usually refer to Jamstack websites as static but they are much more than that thanks to the use of API calls and serverless functions. I’ll get to that in a moment.
What Does It Mean to Have a Jamstack Website?
Jamstack isn't really about the use of specific tools. It is more about the way of building a website that is in-line with Git-based workflow and doesn't rely on servers or databases. Typically Jamstack website comprises three core components: JavaScript, APIs, and Markup (hence sometimes emphasized acronym in the writing of the word i.e. JAMstack). The end result is a static site that nowadays also has plenty of dynamic stuff on it.
Let's do a quick overview of each component:
- JavaScript - Thanks to JavaScript, static sites can have those dynamic bits that wouldn't be possible if they were served with plain HTML only.
- APIs - Thanks to the APIs you can add plenty of dynamic functionality and features, like search or forms, to your static website.
- Markup - Markup is the presentation layer of your site. Thanks to static site generators, templated markup is generated at build time.
How to Jamstack? The Moving Parts.
Now you know what Jamstack stands for let’s see what are the key parts you need to master.JS Frameworks and/or Static Site Generators
Most Jamstack sites are made thanks to static site generators like Gatsby, Next.js, Hugo, Nuxt, etc. SSG takes your content (from a headless CMS for example), applies a selected template, and generates static HTML pages out of it. SSGs are built for that exact purpose but you can use any of the major JavaSript frameworks (like React, Vue, or Svetle) for the job as well.Microservices
Bringing dynamic parts to static websites is possible thanks to a wide array of third-party tools. Developers can also work on adding custom-functions into reusable APIs. For example, AWS Lambda is quite often used for this.Headless CMS
Your content has to live somewhere. Jamstack approach allows the use of headless CMSs , a back-end content management system separated from your front-end presentation layer. A new bread of CMSs like DatoCMS, Storyblok, or Forestry will help you manage and manipulate your content without influencing your presentation.Hosting & deployment
Jamstack hosting options, like Vercel or Netlify, utilize the concept of serverless architecture (a system of running websites and applications without infrastructure management). Backed by CDNs and edge computing they are much more than just a simple host option.What Are the Benefits for Your Startup Website?
Better Performance
The static content is served via CDN, which allows for fast user experience. Pages are generated at deploy time since they are mainly stored as Markup. Let’s leave tech-savvy words aside - what are the exact benefits for your business?
Better performance influences your website user experience immensely. On top of that speed is slowly becoming one of the most important ranking factors . A site that loads fast can expect a better position on Google and as such more revenue and brand awareness.
Higher Security
With Jamstack, front-end and CMS are decoupled. The lack of a server means that you won't need to pay attention to maintaining it. Also, the risk for hacker attacks is minimized which means less money spent on security.
Better Developer Experience
Jamstack brought faster and more focused development. Now, front-end developers can only focus on the front-end. Since the foundation of the Jamstack site is no longer a server, you won’t need to maintain it. Using Jamstack also simplifies the process of using third-party tools for added dynamic functionalities.
Cheaper and Easier Scaling and Hosting
Since development maintenance is less complex, the costs associated with the creation of Jamstack sites are reduced. But there are cost savings in regards to hosting as well. CDN hosting for static files is much cheaper than traditional hosting.
Drawbacks
While Jamstack is revolutionary in many ways, like any other technology, it also comes with a couple of drawbacks. Most notably is the fact that added functionalities depend on 3rd party APIs (and their uptime) and the fact every change to the design requires you to rebuild the entire website which can be a problem for websites with a lot of pages.
In-house Web Developer or Agency for Your Jamstack Project?
Pros and cons on both sides. Having someone 24/7 for your website is mandatory. So, if you happened to have a web dev at hand that is already into Jamstack, use him.
A poor development experience can be detrimental to your project and can stale your business progress. Slow progress is frustrating to everyone and can hurt your business and your revenue. This is especially the case if you are not starting from scratch and you want to switch to Jamstack or you are short staffed.
That’s why many startups decide to outsource web dev projects. Sure, the cost may be higher at the beginning but you won't have to train your in-house developers and you will be able to leverage the agency's skills and knowledge, especially if the agency is specialized in Jamstack only.
A great thing with agencies is that they have more resources at their disposal and in the face of any challenges they will be able to fix them quicker.
Time is money and leaving this project in the hands of the professionals can guarantee that it will be up in a short amount of time and in turn, your revenue too.
Jamstack is for…
...for everyone! Already Jamstack is used by many enterprise-level companies who are utilizing all of the benefits I’ve mentioned. Nike, AirBnB, PayPal and Mailchimp are among those big names.
The simple reason for it, benefits are just too good to ignore.