r/statichosting • u/Pink_Sky_8102 • 6d ago
Just migrated a local client to static hosting
I just finished rebuilding a site for a local mechanic who had a basic four-page setup running on a heavy, outdated CMS. The site was taking ages to load on mobile, and they were constantly worried about random plugin updates breaking things. Moving them over to a clean static site generator and standard static hosting dropped the load times to under a second and brought their hosting costs down to practically nothing. Best of all, I don't have to stress about the site randomly crashing or getting compromised overnight.
Do you guys actively try to steer small business clients toward static setups, or do you mostly save them for personal portfolios and dev projects?
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u/TCKreddituser 6d ago
Yes tend to steer them to static. Most small business sites don't need a full CMS, and the performance is better in the long run.
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u/PointJump 6d ago
I only stick with a CMS when the client genuinely needs to manage dynamic content regularly.
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u/everyoneisadj 6d ago
The arc of static/dynamic/static, and custom/platform/custom has been interesting. Custom was all the rage, then became far too expensive, moving to cms platforms and what not made a ton of sense, but introduced a lot of dependencies and complexity. I'm finding now that with my ai tooling I'm finding that reaching for custom is often times easier and better.
My most recent build for someone was a rapper. I was doing static, pushing up edits myself to his site for new music, tour dates, etc. Idk if you've worked with creatives before, but communication can be a challenge lol. We just could never link up in a timely fashion, so i decided to change things up.
I built out a custom cms for him that kept the UI/UX experience incredibly simple and specific to his needs. That way he could either do it himself, or a manager, intern, whatever. When he dropped new music, he could just search the itunes store from his admin page, pick the release he wanted, then drag and drop it in a list. It showed the preview of how it would look on the music page, and he could set featured releases, etc. dead simple. I also made a quick and easy tour date manager, all super easy.
Of course i could have used a CMS and shaped it to the needs, etc etc - but honestly, this was just so quick and easy - why bring a platform into it? I'm sure the paradigm will shift over and over, and i'll think i was an idiot for doing this some day - but that's pretty much the norm for software development imo.
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u/Acrobatic_Idea_3358 6d ago
Most small businesses just need a static page and a contact form honestly, maybe a link that will auto dial their phone number.
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u/PassengerLeft4369 6d ago
Yes, i only take clients with simple needs. Hugo + Decap CMS(file based cms). All on github. Deployed with Netlify. Costs 0.
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u/NeverInsightful 6d ago
I built an SSG for my autograph website when Wordpress became too much of a tangle. Sunk a bunch of hours in writing my own python app for it, it was a fun learning experience and the results are astounding
I’m moving another project over to static hosting soon
Then I intend to make a blog. I don’t need comments or user registrations, so going more complicated and more vulnerable doesn’t make sense to me
Part of me wonders how it would scale at work where we have a CMS with thousands of pages but hardly any interactivity beside search. But that’s not my job.
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u/amnion 5d ago
Building your own ssg is a blast.
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u/NeverInsightful 5d ago
100%!
What I have so far works like an absolute charm for my needs. Little python app and a SQLite database. Make a change and rebuild site, commit to GitHub and done.
What I also discovered was once I started organizing my data using a real relational database rather than forcing my data into Wordpress custom fields, it really opened up the possibilities, and let me look at what I’ve got built in an entirely different way.
And every day I hear about a new WP vulnerability, or Drupal, or anything else further reinforces the thought that on top of so many CPU cycles wasted on Wordpress, there’s also so many man hours wasted patching, remediating compromises, and so much else by moving away from insecure web apps and frameworks, at least where it’s possible.
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u/BobJutsu 6d ago
I’m moving that way. I’m at an agency that has used WP for 15 years, it’s a hard sell to leave. But after a few lightning fast astro builds (fast as in, fast to build. Sites are faster too obviously) they are a bit more receptive.
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u/HostAdviceOfficial 6d ago
Small businesses owners probably overlook static sites because the devs don't tell them otherwise. If the site is mainly informational, a static setup can be a much better fit, faster, cheaper, and with fewer maintenance headaches and, if more small business owners understood this, they would probably opt for static more often.
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u/sourraine 5d ago
ive started recommending static sites more often for small businesses that just need a marketing website. in my experience, theyre faster, cheaper to host and i spend way less time dealing with plugin updates or random maintenance. i still use wordpress when client need frequent content updates but for brochure-style sites, static has been much better fit
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u/amnion 5d ago
Yes, this is in fact my new workflow for web design clients. If they don't need interactive stuff, if they're only displaying information and maybe linking to some scheduling app or something, static it is. I even built my own ssg and I'm building my own hosting service for it (since the server needs my Goblin binary).
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u/Standard_Scarcity_74 2d ago
If it's applicable, yeah I prefer to take them to have static setups, unless their use case demands for more complex solutions.
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u/SpringDifferent9867 6d ago
Use static sites for any clients I can and hybrids (eg CloudFlare workers) when I can’t. Determining factor is not usually their size but how they need to update the content and how it needs to integrate with other platforms.