Hello!
I am starting my journey as a developer and building a simple website for an NGO.
I am able to code in Ruby on Rails and some basic Javascript (in addition to HTML and CSS) but am thinking to ditch JS to make it lighter.
The only requirement would be that the client should be able to modify the content without my intervention (update events section, add articles or modify some info of the website).
On the optional preferred aspects would be a very light-weight website (I'm interested in delving into sober, more eco-friendly web development, any resources on that would be appreciated too!), as open-source and cheap as possible and obviously as easily maintainable as possible. Scalability isn't required.
Although very unfamiliar with the deployment and hosting aspects (I only learned Heroku during my bootcamp), I have seen Hugo could be a good option for this since there's no need for dynamically generated content (just the introductory page of the NGO, upcoming and past events and latest scientific publications by the NGO (short article, text only) but I'm a bit lost and would like some advice.
Thank you very much!
Top comments (8)
I suggest taking a look at Jekyll (jekyllrb.com/). If you’re willing to teach your client some basics of Markdown, they can manage the content pretty easily (but you’ll have to rebuild the site each time or set up automation).
Jekyll (and any other static site generator) will produce a bundle you can host anywhere, and many places provide free hosting for static sites, see Netlify Drop for example. It also can be considered eco-friendly because the resulting bundle is tiny and you don’t even have to have any JS in it.
Hope this helps! I’d be glad to help you with this, feel free to hit me up if you want!
Thank you for your feedback! would you know some use-cases or specificities of Jekyll over Hugo or Astro? From the glimpse I got at those 2 static site generators, Hugo seems to work similarly while Astro might have some interface for the client to update the page.
I'll definitely have a look at Netlify Drop in that case!
Thank you for the help as well, I think I'll make a serie on the project for documentation and if it can help future newbies!
Cheers!
Unfortunately, I don't have much experience with Hugo and Astro but the way I see it is like this: Jekyll and Hugo are more or less the same except maybe some things than one or another does differently; Astro looks like a more "serious" solution but at the same time it looks like the most "bloated" one (which again is dictated by its different positioning).
And as for use-cases, I'd consider the following:
Are you familiar with Turbo and Stimulus? These seem like the very Rails-centric way to accomplish "sprinkles" of JS in an otherwise very interactive site.
As far as hosting goes, render.com would give a lot of Heroku-esqe simplicity at a cheaper price. But if you want something even cheaper while still being much easier than stuff that's closer to the metal, I'd recommend checking out hatchbox.io as another option.
Thanks! You are correct indeed, my basic JS is Turbo and Stimulus but although it feels tempting to use Rails, I don't think the scale of the project requires a backend and I'd rather learn to adapt to the project than do the opposite!
Hey Cedric, I would recommend a static site generator like Hugo as mentioned or something similar being Astro, Gatsby and next.js. I have a post about some great sites for themes and templates that might help you get inspired. Good luck with your project!
Thank you very much Travis!