I chose to create my website with a static site generator. There are three main reasons I am using one instead of a content management system: simplicity, speed, and security.

In my last post about the website, I gave an overview of two great options for putting together a website: static site generators (SSG) and content management systems (CMS). I also included a list of things I was looking for to make my personal web home:

  1. My own personal domain name.
  2. Custom pages including pages about me and how to contact me.
  3. Blog to write about data and other interests.
  4. Room to grow and host any projects I want.
  5. Not too much HTML, CSS, or JavaScript required. (I know a little bit, but I have no plans to be a full-time web developer.)

Both solutions will be able to meet all the criteria I want in my website, so it comes down to any pros and cons of the two. The advantages I see in using a SSG over a CMS or a combination of the two (e.g.: a headless CMS + SSG) are in simplicity, speed, and security.

Simplicity

After comparing SSGs (like Jekyll, Gatsby, or Hugo) to CMSs (like WordPress or Ghost), the CMS solutions seemed like overkill for my personal website. I would strongly consider a CMS if I had multiple contributors, but since it is only me, I felt a CMS would add unnecessary complexity to hosting my website. I also thought a headless CMS with a SSG was an overly complicated solution compared to an SSG alone.

Speed

Nobody likes a slow website. I want my website to load as fast as possible – I do not want people to overlook it or get frustrated and leave. Static pages take less time to load than the same pages generated dynamically every time a visitor pings the web server. The reason is simple: no computing resources are required to build them before delivering to the visitor.

An additional benefit of this speed is reduced server load. This is important to me because I want to have the flexibility to run other small apps on the same server. Serving static pages will reduce the load from the webserver and allow me to use resources that otherwise would have gone to dynamic page generation.

Side note: Remember that with a SSG, any changes or updates to your website require a rebuild. Some people may be interested in how long that takes. Compile speed is not a factor I am worried about since my site is not going to be updated multiple times each day and is not large. However, if you frequently update your site, build time can add a delay to pushing out new content. Also note that larger websites will require longer build times. If these are issues, dynamic generation may be a good solution, or you can compare SSGs by compile speed and choose one with a relatively fast compiler.

Security

Finally, I am interested in hosting the most secure website I can. While I would not expect anyone to waste their time hacking into this site, it could happen and cause me serious headaches.

I am most worried about losing data and sustaining reputational damage. Suppose someone figures out how to hack into my CMS. They might gain full control and could alter the home page, delete data, or take down my site altogether. At best, it would be embarrassing to have bad content on my website. With a CMS, my best defense would be to make sure I regularly update it with security patches. This is understandable, but for my small website, it means I will spend more time maintaining the server. Static pages reduce my security concerns because I will not have to remember to update the CMS software, and I do not have to worry about unauthorized access/logins to the CMS.

In the next post, I will describe the technical setup of my website.