When it comes to website design, particularily with blogs there’s a war that’s been fought for ages: Static or not?
That’s not a very easy question to answer and everyone seems to have their own opinions on what you should pick. I personally will always pick static, just because that’s what works for me, but everyone is different and you should weigh your own needs and wants before picking one option over another. In this post I will weigh the pros and cons to help you pick the best one for you.
The good
When it comes to choosing how you want to build your blogs and sites there are a few very good reasons to pick static.
You control your content
This is a big one. With something like Wordpress you are restricted to a few very specific themes. Many of these companies claim to have thousands of templates but in reality many of them are just color shifted versions of eachother.
While with static sites you have templates too, you aren’t required to, and you can easily make something that looks good even without prior programming experience using some very good resources such as W3 schools or css-tricks. The fact is you own your content.
The bad
Very little interactivity
This is a problem that has plagued static sites since their inception. With no servers there is no comments, no logins, no nothing. Just text on a page. Sure you can make it look pretty, but in the end there is nothing the user can do but read.
Many proponents of static sites say it doesn’t matter, for comments you can use disquss and why does your site need a login anyways? These are both real arguments and that’s why you need to pick what’s right for you.
The downright ugly
Large sites
Where building a site using static html pages gets really ugly is when your site needs to scale. Sure you might not get much traffic when you are just starting out, but eventually you’ll need to scale your site to meet with demand. Keeping hundreds of html pages up to date especially after your site design changes can be a real challenge in the long run.
Conclusion
So what should you pick? In the end it comes down you your personal needs. If you honestly think your site will be getting thousands of visits, and you honestly think you will need to make hundreds of pages of content, go with a CMS. Otherwise a static site might be good for you. Go with your gut.
this was originally posted on my personal site, which is a static blog without any stylizing. Check it out here: original post
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