<p>We have already talked about Jamstack technology, its architecture and benefits in detail and you will find many articles on various platforms on Jamstack technology so we will not discuss it today. This blog will guide you more about Static site generators like Gatsby rather than JAMing, however, Gatsby would be covered under the umbrella of this modern stack architecture. The blog will be paving your path towards implementing the technology based on WordPress as a CMS, GatsbyJS as our very own static site generator and Netlify for easy and free deployment. You may not be able to find any centralized document for the combination of these tools working under modern stack web architecture, so we plan to put the pieces together with an assumption that the readers will have basic knowledge of React and GraphQL.&nbsp;</p><h3>Why is WordPress as Headless CMS?</h3><p>The choice of CMS is tough when you have so many options available in the industry with similar yet distinctive features. Netlify has been showing much interest in the headless CMS to host the Gatsby SSG sites that will ultimately lead to a significant choice of the most accurate and efficient content management system. WordPress in this respect has been the ultimate choice because of it’s easy to use platform and market leader in the website development platform.&nbsp;</p><p>I believe it is the most simple and attractive CMS, and without a front-end, it is a great and feasible choice for building a website based on JAMstack technology. The WordPress community has been continuously working on the improvement of the platform in terms of plugins and facilitating the user with a no-code web solution, especially when it comes up to manage the schema of the SSGs.</p><p>When you build your website on GatsbyJS SSG, the structure of the website is depicted by the information source that has primarily been determined by the headless CMS. The raw data that has been entered in the headless WordPress in the form of content fundamentally decides the structure in terms of pages and tags for the data models.&nbsp;</p><p>Initially, WordPress was meant to be for the bloggers and by analyzing the blogging websites you will realize that they have been constructed using WordPress but as a monolithic structure. The headless structure has been established to help us in building the basic structure first and then extend it in terms of appearance.</p><h3>Managing Frontend with GatsbyJS Themes</h3><p>You need to set up the environment for the Gatsby Project by installing Gatsby CLI, and a little technical knowledge will be required for running basic commands. It is always recommended to start by cloning the starter templates of Gatsby by iterating them to create your first Gatsby appearance. Gatsby projects can be created and saved on the central repository systems like GitHub or BitBucket. If you run the command Gatsby new it is similar to running the git clone command, and npm install in the local folder. But the difference between these two commands is Gatsby will not remotely retain a git while the git clone will retain the git.</p><p>The local setup is already available and you can view it by running Gatsby develop command in the project folder. This command will generate the static site in the directory in the development environment and it can be previewed in the most common local used URL localhost:8000. If you are running multiple projects on your system, the URL may be different like 8001, 8002 and so on.</p><h3>Working with Gatsby Theme</h3><p>Since we already mentioned that we will be using WordPress as a back-end and content management and Gatsby theme will play the role of the front-end platform. Let’s get into some detailing into this decoupled approach of website development under the umbrella of Jamstack technology architecture. Since managing the content and the backend is being done through WordPress which is the simplest platform for content management. The GatsbyJS theme will be configured pointing to the content management system creating a connection between the two platforms.</p><p>The configuration of the theme requires API URL and content API key, the values of the same will be available in the admin panel of WordPress in the integration tab. The site changes can be reviewed through the localhost URL, the changes made through the CMS are immediately reflected on localhost on the theme selected on Gatsby. Although the content on the initial and default theme will be terrible and some changes will be required on this default theme.</p><h3>The Structural Elaboration of a Gatsby Site</h3><p>The Static Site generated websites have another level of impact through their speed and you can experience it by scrolling the web pages. GatsbyJS has been based on JavaScript using ReactJS and there will be unlimited options.</p><p>Gatsby has been derived to get the raw data from the CMS to form a site structure and transform it into the website structure. All the static pages on HTML, styles in CSS and other assets are available in the public folder whose output will keep on changing with every build.</p><h4>The front-end files</h4><p>The static sites have the most salient feature of faster loading, no processes are going on at the backend at the time of page load to display any certain navigation items or widgets. They are also not dependent on the JS files for manipulating the pages at frontend. Hence the waiting times get to absolute zero since it looks like it was already ready to display.&nbsp;</p><p>GatsbyJS SSG can load the web pages before they are clicked because of several links available on the static pages. Since we have been mentioning <i>“static” </i>several times,&nbsp; that refers to 100s of pages being processed at the backend. Gatsby build is the default method for deploying the Gatsby site</p><h4>The back-end source files</h4><p>The commands like Gatsby build and Gatsby develop are used to locate the file in the public folder. The default layout would not be as expected since it will be displayed randomly. Here we will be needing a template to beautify the content being displayed. So now you can say we are moving towards the presentation layer that is contained in the source folder.</p><p>The source folder at Gatsby contains the logic to generate the stylesheets and the static files i.e HTML files. All the files in the src folder are the ReactJS component and the output of the component is a JSX file resulting from the GraphQL queries being passed from one component to another. So we can rightly say that the customization of the theme is performed in the src folder.</p><h3>Gatsby Templates</h3><p>Templates are the structure of repeating pages used for the website display. The content for each blog will be different but will follow the same template or design pattern. A template can be divided into the actual GraphQL connecting with the admin to fetch the content to be displayed on the current page. The query results performed associating the data items and type as per the expectations. The React component accepting the data rendered through GraphQL</p><p>For those who are not known to ReactJS would be wondering about the word “component”. The programmers define a component as the reusable blocks of programming code that are shared across the pages.</p><h3>Configuration and Plugins</h3><p>You might be wondering how will the components query the data source, and how would they know it is the accurate data? Since our components exist and recognize the post and page configuration of the data model will be required. All this sourcing of data in GatsbyJS is performed in Gatsby-config file. It is configured by installing the Gatsby Plugins and it is a complete web pack file for configuration and it includes;</p><ul><li>The RSS feed</li><li>The advanced sitemap for SEO</li><li>React-helmet to provide JSX element for setting metadata</li></ul><h3>Client-side JavaScript</h3><p>The last step is the client-side building of static pages that are the browser of Gatsby allowing to execute the front-end that triggers the user changes. This is the method of implementing the code syntax using the trigger script. All the changes are managed on the client-side on the beautiful template and well-organized pattern by using React components.</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>Gatsby has changed the web development pattern wherein the static pages being designed for the content that has been written on a separate platform unknowingly how it is going to be displayed. The traditional pattern of website development has always been based on visual-coding using the admin panel, however, Jamstack technology has been based on microservices wherein the content has been divided into components and called as and when required.&nbsp;</p><p>The suitable options for GatsbyJS based website are</p><ul><li>A startup company using NodeJS or ReactJS</li><li>A project for university or students having time to code and work on different platforms learning new technologies.</li><li>The framework freaks who have time to glue up to the computers</li></ul><p>Although the framework takes much of your time and energy as it requires your expertise in different programming languages, tools and platforms, and much more. It also provides speed, security and scalability. Every technology in its starting years grabs a bunch of people around to work hard and later in some years it becomes a success and the rest just become the followers.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

The choice of CMS is tough when you have so many options available in the industry with similar yet distinctive features.

A roadmap of Static Site Generation using Jamstack Technology with Gatsby

<p>The website development has been long known as based on the content management system with WordPress. With the great confidence of freedom of managing content, the flexibility of styling the design with the available templates and adding functionality by using plugins the content management system has always been a one-for-all solution where your front-end and the back-end has been built on the same platform. This traditional stack has been long known as Monolithic architecture. Have you been wondering that if everything has been so easy going, what was the problem with this technology? And what if not a uni-platform or structure what else than?</p><p>We will be replying to all such queries today in this blog and the detail of monolithic and microservices approach in today’s web industry. Since we have talked about <a href="https://www.stackground.com/blog/a-guide-to-build-the-jamstack-applications-with-gatsbyjs">Jamstack technology </a>earlier and how and why is it important for web development for individuals and businesses, its time to drill a little more into this modern stack web development with the actual back-end approach behind the Jamstack technology and using headless CMS and Static site generators for websites.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>Old Stack and Monolithic Way</h3><p>&nbsp;All of us must have heard, seen or worked on WordPress for building our very first website, with freedom of choosing a theme, managing pages, posts, content and more. If not through WordPress there must be other CMS serving us as back-end and front-end known as monolithic approach. This old stack has been using PHP, HTML and CSS for the website designing and back-end functionalities and features. That’s the very basic approach of development and programming that involves lengthy codes being written at the backend.&nbsp;</p><h3>Drawbacks of Monolithic approach</h3><p>The monolithic approach is although a one for all approach but it was not secure since the data was exposed to SQL injections and the hacking of the data was easier. The single management i.e. design and the back-end makes the website and apps slower as it takes longer time to load everything. Any change in the data, content or back-end may affect the front-end so you do not have a free hand in both the ends.&nbsp;</p><p>Web stacks are groups of technical tools that developers use for making a web application. Usually, a tech stack consists of four things i.e. the Operating System (OS), web server, DB software and the back-end and front-end programming language. The traditional website development method is very easy to build and manage.</p><p>Why Choosing Jamstack?</p><p>Choosing the stack for your development is one of the first decisions you have to make, and the right choice can save you. Before we talk about why and how Jamstack is one of the hottest stacks of the 2020 and beyond, let’s take a look at the issue’s world has been facing before it ever existed;</p><ul><li>The slow speed of web page loading</li><li>Insecure data and back-end</li><li>Difficulty in adding functionality through cracked Plugins</li><li>SEO optimization</li><li>Frequent updates of themes and plugins</li></ul><h3>Jamstack and Microservices</h3><p>Jamstack word comes from JavaScript, APIs, and Markup. It uses only JavaScript, supporting APIs, and markup, to build good websites and web applications. Jamstack is a modern architecture for building fast, secure, cost-efficient and scalable websites. By using the modern Jamstack technology we can build static pages, with more complex functionality integrated.</p><p>Jamstack represents a new way of developing software based on build-time and client-side rendering, that doesn’t depend on web servers for outputting websites and applications. Jamstack relies on modern JavaScript frameworks and static site generators to build blazing-fast websites, which makes the difference in how well Google perceives a website.</p><h3>The Structural Architecture of Jamstack technology</h3><p>How are both the architecture the same? Jamstack is exclusively for web development wherein the websites are being developed on isolated platforms for developing the back-end and designing the user interface.</p><p>The jamstack technology can be divided into the following services;</p><ul><li>Static Site Generator like Gatsby, Next etc.</li><li>GraphQL APIs</li><li>Headless CMS like WordPress, Contentful etc.</li><li>Content delivery network</li></ul><h3>The Microservices structure of Jamstack website</h3><p>With the Jamstack architecture, instead of integrating microservices to a backend framework, it’s possible to integrate the services holistically.</p><ol><li>The programming ecosystem provides an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) that is required to customize APIs, develop backend business logic and the frontend as well.</li><li>The event-based web callback is known as webhooks, primarily used to simplify real-time information delivery (always) from the server-side to the client-side. In a rudimentary sense, they can be considered as reverse APIs, that are responsible for transmitting data from the source application</li><li>Static websites are files which are served from a server or a content delivery network. Static websites do not render dynamically. Static means that every user gets the same files from web servers or CDNs in contrast to dynamic websites where the served files may vary on multiple different factors and serve different files for different users.</li><li>An API (Application Programming Interface) is a request based, a programmable intermediary that works between the server and the client-side to transmit data. In headless CMS, the API contacts the web content from the body, i.e. backend repository, and delivers it to the head, i.e. frontend presentation layer, only when a request is generated.</li><li>A headless Content Management System (CMS) is a content management system which does not have a front-end integration. Headless CMSs follow a decoupled architecture model. It simply means that the Content Management System offers only a back end to store and manage content, and an API to get the data you need to show in your client application.</li></ol><h3>Components structured in Gatsby</h3><p>&nbsp;The front-end i.e. based on the <a href="https://www.stackground.com/gatsby-wordpress-theme-templates">GatsbyJS</a> React components in the account of back-end CMS i.e headless WordPress has a certain architecture and structure of components as mentioned below;</p><ol><li>The parent component i.e., Layout used as the global component.</li><li>The views that are connected to the router are mapped directly to the template page of WordPress CMS. For Example, if back-end has a Contact us page, the front-end will have the contact us view.</li><li>Another important component used across all the website page is partials that include the data fetch.</li><li>Lastly, the global components that are reused throughout the site.</li></ol><h3>The World reservations towards Jamstack technology</h3><p>Jamstack technology is still not very common to businesses and also to many technical and non-technical people. The technical people working under a certain programming stack are still unaware of the microservices architecture for web development under <a href="https://www.stackground.com/jamstack-themes">Jamstack technology</a>. Some of the reservations are;</p><ol><li>Expecting non-technical content authors to write in markup is unrealistic, especially in a world where other feature-rich CMSs focus on simplifying content authoring. Content relationships are also one place where Jamstack sites are assumed to struggle, especially when it comes to relationships between pages or collections of assets.</li><li>When leveraging Jamstack, if you need to add shopping carts, feedback forms, or comments, you need to add additional services to your stack, which could expose your security or the stability of the site if you need to render dynamic content.</li><li>In almost all cases, managing content without a dedicated CMS can be hard. If you decide to upload markdown directly to your site and link images, you’ll have a hard time because you’ll have to do all the media management yourself. A headless CMS eases your load and helps you focus on what matters.</li></ol><p>&nbsp;</p><h3>The Result of Microservice Structure</h3><p>&nbsp;Although it is effortless to use the traditional WordPress in the monolithic structure where the data and design are on the same platform and you can see real-time changes. But the website performance is affected greatly like speed, limitation in design and security of back-end. The microservice structure of the website makes them more dynamic, secure and fast. The website performance is much better and the modern website gets higher google ranking by being fully SEO optimized. The Jamstack technology needs awareness and in future, more and more people will move towards modern technology.</p>

The technology shift from Monolithic to Microservices with jamstack

<p>Jamstack Technology is like the flavour of the month in tech Industry with its benefits and uses in website and app development. The Jamstack technology of development led the world with the idea of de-coupled approach that was based on connecting the back-end and front-end through APIs and this is core or this technical architecture of the development. The technology grasped the attention of many companies specially web-development companies who had a threat of losing their market with this revolution in the industry promising speed, security, SEO traffic and google ranking that most of them were lacking.</p><h3>Decoupled Approach in JAMstack Website</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The <a href="https://www.stackground.com/jamstack-themes">Jamstack technology</a> brought together the SSGs with the headless CMS approach. This decoupled approach of website development has several benefits as mentioned below.</p><ul><li>3x Speed: The static frontend working freely without the Database load attached to it. The load time greatly affects the views of the website as well as the customer conversion rate.</li><li>Enhanced Security: The static front-end and back-end connected through APIs makes the website immune from SQL injections.</li><li>Cost Efficient: The dynamic websites require the website compatibility with the technology stack that is not the case with the decoupled approach. The websites based on a Static Site Generator can be hosted on any server.</li></ul><h3>Gatsby as Static Site Generator</h3><p>Conceptually static site generators came very strongly in the market when the drawbacks of the traditional website development through CMS were creating a hike due to some lacking in certain technologies. Especially when Google was ranking the website with better speed and traditional website development were struggling with speed and security.</p><p>Gatsby has been found as one of the finest SSGs with many additional benefits that have been developed using ReactJS. It is individually only the front-end of the website where you can have the theme and the view of the website, while it has been powered by the GraphQL APIs.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>What is a Static Site Generator?&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The literal definition of a static site generator is that it creates the HTML pages from the components or templates. If you compare it to the dynamic systems the static site generators require a back-end that has the website content and REST APIs. The Static Site generators like Gatsby has been designed on the modern technology libraries like React using the GraphQL APIs. Jekyll is another commonly used static site generator in the market but it does not have a convenient environment like Gatsby using WordPress backend through GraphQL APIs.</p><h3>How do Gatsby works?</h3><p>Gatsby as a static site generator is not limited to its definition. Here we will get into detail how it works and why it provides the benefits we have been hearing about since long.</p><ul><li>Improvised Web: Since long the websites have been lacking in a few minor things that have been exaggerated by time since the speed, security, maintainability, appearance, accessibility and cost has been amongst these few factors. The modern stack website development tool plays with the website and the extended features that have been offered promises quality of the website by working on all these lacking previous tools.</li><li>Building a Higher-level Building Blocks of the Website: components of HTML, CSS and JS are the most common building blocks of today’s websites. Like always technology will revolutionize and while looking back at these components like after about 7-10 years, we will find them as an assembly language. Gatsby is crafting a higher-level language in this perspective by using the React components like Gatsby-link and Gatsby-image. React is also simple JavaScript but use its libraries and combine the HTML codes and other library components with unlimited options like adding Bootstrap simply into the React code.</li><li>Creating Content Mesh System: Over years the websites and applications have been building on Monolithic Architectures based on the setup of Content Management Systems to the modular system of the content mesh by getting the functionality and content from multiple sources. But the challenge they have been facing is the pragmatical integration of all these pieces. While on the other hand, the goal of Gatsby SSG is to create a more cohesive content mesh knitting together the modular tool in the content model with search, authentication, analytics, UI frameworks and payments.</li><li>Fun with Website Development: Simplicity and exclusiveness make the website development fun and learning at the same time. The latest technology that is being implemented in the system using the Jamstack architecture is redefining and reefing the roles of the employees like front-end developer is more interested in the design and user interface issues rather than the back-end like content and more. The proper tooling can be felt very clearly by the designers, developers, copy-writers and marketers.</li></ul><h3>Philosophy Behind Gatsby</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>You might be wondering how these benefits work within this Static Site Generator and how it will work with the modern stack programming languages.</p><ul><li>Modern JS for Web Content: by bundling the ecosystem of modern JavaScript, Gatsby is making the web content of higher quality through advance performance in splitting bundle, prefetching the asset, supporting offline, optimization of image and server-side rendering. In addition to it providing good developer’s experience through React and Webpack transpile providing security and accessibility all together.</li><li>User Experience: The term used to make the web apps easier to learn and minimize the error-prone by most of the UX designers is Progressive Disclosure. It simplifies the experiences of people without limiting user abilities. Progressive disclosure is performed by making features like Gatsby-image, modifying the Babel config or web pack, opt-in, Gatsby-link and more.</li></ul><h3>Open-Source Community of Gatsby</h3><p>Tthe actual reason for the success of Gatsby is it being an open-source community where the strength is its community and ecosystem making it progressive each day. It is open for everyone where people can open an issue and millions of people technical and non-technical will respond. It has been found that Gatsby developed a number of its features through this emerged conversation. If you get a chance to see the old conversations on Gatsby, you will realize that the issues reported on them have been resolved turning out to be one of the features of Gatsby. The open-source communities help the developers in many ways;</p><ul><li>Great looking body of work and experience.</li><li>Referral network of jobs</li><li>Sustainable Income source</li></ul><p>WordPress as Headless CMS</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>A simple and traditional content management system is the application for managing the website content by saving it to the DB or a file for accessing it at a later stage. Some of the commonly used CMS are WordPress, Contentful, Drupal etc.&nbsp; When we refer to a content management system without a front-end, we are referring the headless CMS.</p><h3>What is Headless WordPress?</h3><p>&nbsp;The WordPress CMS is a visual editor for the back-end approach for the website, you can use it simply like regular content building platform like for any dynamic website. Headless WordPress generates JSON returning from the REST APIs for using at the SSGs as HTML file. The WordPress allows the users to create content, edit it and attach images etc with the categories and pages for the clients like Gatsby for parsing JSON.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>From a non-technical perspective when you are building a website using WordPress, when you enter content, create the page you have a theme and a view available where you can see how it will look from the end-user interface on a browser. But when you are referring to headless WordPress it means you don’t have any user-view of the browser where you can see how it will look it from the end-user.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>Why using Headless WordPress?</h3><p>&nbsp;The WordPress CMS is also an open-source platform that provides a great level of flexibility for building a website. The WordPress when used as headless allow the users to create the front-end of the website on any of the technology and that maintaining the content on the same CMS. You can build any website for businesses like E-Commerce and Blogs with features in the simple CMS you have long working on with advance technology features like attaching ReactJS with Php.</p><p>The WordPress as a complete package can create dynamic websites but also can be used using modern stack development technology like Jamstack architecture by using it as headless and connecting it through the static site generators using REST APIs like GraphQL APIs.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>GraphQL APIs</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;Creating any difference with the technology is sometimes simple and easy but sometimes you do not proceed due to the lack of resources you have and complexity of the website. APIs are the bridge between the headless WordPress and Gatsby Static Site Generator, your SSG requires to pull content from headless WordPress so GraphQL acts as that liaison between the two editors. There are different approaches for using them</p><ul><li>You can use GraphQL as your private API by using Gatsby-source-graphql</li><li>If you are unaware of GraphQL, you can treat it as unstructured data and fetch it while building the website using Gatsby.</li><li>You can also create the source plugin.</li></ul><h3>What is GraphQL?</h3><p>The GraphQL acts as the core and the centre of the strong schema that is composed of types and fields that can be well defined as the scalar. Have you wondered what it stands for? Let’s break it up</p><ul><li>Graph: is the Application Data Graph</li><li>QL: is the Query Language</li></ul><p>So as an elaboration it is the Query language that is used for interacting with the Graph of App Data. WordPress GraphQL is the extendable schema of API and GraphQL that can be used with the headless CMS to create headless CMS and Static Site Generator website. It helps in creating the declarative query best suited to the client's needs as a response. This gives the client complete control over the application or website. It provides efficiency by fetching what is required only and this feature makes the front end fast and secure. It is capable of bringing multiple data from a single source and follows the references smoothly and efficiently.</p><p>While a traditional REST API will be requiring a round-trip request to achieve the endpoints. GraphQL, on the other hand, is specified as a featured Query Language. The GraphQL use WordPress ensures that your data is not written back to the server with no verification required from the requester who is capable of creating the posts.</p><h3>Content through GraphQL</h3><p>&nbsp;You can build your site page when the APIs pull the content in Gatsby-node.js. Once the data is fetched it can be made available for any query with GraphQL. The source API gets the data and Gatsby uses that data to infer a schema of GraphQL API. The function of the GraphQL is to run the arbitrary queries against the local schema of WP GraphQL.</p><p>Furthermore, the WordPress GraphQL is the build of PHP library and it is used to provide extendable and executable schema and also resolver for the website built on WordPress.<br>&nbsp;</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>The technology is very helpful not only for the technical people but also some of the non-technical people who have been struggling for solutions for their business problems. Although management is the actual decision-maker for developing a website on WordPress and the Static Site Generator.&nbsp;</p><p>Gatsby WordPress templates are a low-code solution that provides security speed and scalability to the websites that promise higher Google ranking, increased SEO traffic and higher conversion rate. All these benefits have been grouped together in the no-code platform of Stackground offering easier and convenient solutions for building Jamstack websites. There are several themes and web templated best suiting the business and individual needs. The plugins built on the platform offer all the functionalities as required by the industry.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>You can install Gatsby and start building a website by connecting the headless WordPress through GraphQL APIs for your business. The decoupled website approach is a simple solution using the Git repository to pull and push the code. You can fetch all the images from the headless WordPress and get them displayed on the static site.&nbsp;<br><br>&nbsp;</p>

GatsbyJS and headless WordPress use refers to JAMstack technology which is the modern stack development methodology using React and GraphQL.

Why Choose Gatsby WordPress for Jamstack Website Development

<p>Jamstack websites are a new revolution in the world of web development. Since the world is taking advantage of this revolutionary technology, we will tell you exactly how it can build your website.</p><p>The Jamstack technology came up with a high rate of acceptance around the globe over a previous couple of years, and many big companies came up with full support and assistance for creating fully dynamic and fast-paced web applications. The new technology advocates fast and hassle-free deployments yielding frequent and more comfortable deployment cycles providing the users with the latest updates.</p><p>Jamstack is not merely a software architecture, but philosophy is adhering to JavaScript, APIs and Markup components. The simple example to it might be a simple HTML file not dynamic and not having a JavaScript file is a Jamstack app, and any React app you have compiled with web-pack and served from S3 is also a Jamstack app. So, you can rightly say that it has changed the workflow of development completely. This is also related to the replacement of monolithic structures to microservices by developing micro components and deploying through simple procedures. The architecture doesn’t mix the designers with the developers as back-end and front-end are separated, and both the teams can work independently.</p><p>Although by definition, JAM is a combination of three concepts residing as the core of the stack, i.e. JavaScript, APIs and Markup. But we would be getting deeper into the idea to find the actual benefits of the technology and what developing a website with this architecture would look like.</p><h3>Jamstack Workflow</h3><p>Irrespective of the traditional workflow where the developer writes the code and ship it to the server, and the server produces the HTML on demand of the client that asks for the website; the Jamstack Workflow works differently as mentioned below;</p><ol><li>The developer writes the code and&nbsp; ships the built files to the Continuous Delivery Network ( CDN)</li><li>The CDN is serving the pre-built files on demand.</li><li>The client requests the website.</li></ol><h3>Static Site Generators</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>As we discussed earlier regarding the front-end and ‘J’ of Jamstack, the architecture required to pre-render markup and the static site generators have been designed to serve the purpose. There are not many of the companies offering services of static site generation the most famous amongst them is Gatsby that uses React as its JS framework and also Next.JS, Vue, Gridsome. Still, some static site generators are not JavaScript based like Jekyll using Ruby and Hugo on Golang. You cannot isolate the front-end entirely and it has to be linked to the back-end, i.e. the ‘M’ of Jamstack so Gatsby, Vue and Next would be good to go since JavaScript enables to enhance the application using its functionalities.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>The function of the SSGs are to make the front-end static where the website pages take no time in loading, and the data is secure. The speed of the website is affected due to two main reasons, one is that the back-end and the database are separate from the page loading on your side and second is that SSGs function to load the website from the JS script making a static image, so it opens in a fraction of seconds. But when a response from the front end is received in the form of comment, contact or purchase it leads to second letter i.e. ‘A’ standing for the APIs of Jamstack. The SSG may sound similar to traditional webs app stack but the architectural difference between the two technology structures&nbsp;</p><p>The coding techniques used to include long repetitive codes, loops, logics and content but with the passage of time and advancement of technology the coding techniques refined to a greater extent and the concept of repeating the code for multiple pages kept on changing. Static site generation has been a part of this revolution. The data and the content is applied to the templates and a view is generated for the visitors.</p><h4>Benefits of Static Site Generators</h4><p>Have you ever wondered why are the static site generators so famous and why is the world moving towards them;</p><ol><li>There have been many options available in the market like Gatsby which is one of the most famous SSG and more trending. Since the advancement in technology is being made and more developers are looking forward to the technology.</li><li>The SSGs have been made available in many flavours like React and Vue and more. The technology is independent of the back-end technology.</li><li>The website built through SSGs is more secure because of the static front end and detached back-end.</li><li>The website is highly scalable because of its efficiency as it decreases the workload on the server.</li><li>The performance of the website is more responsive and users experience a fast website with updated information through CDN.</li></ol><h4>What and How you build on SSG</h4><p>You must ask yourself what your actual requirement is and what you wanna build;</p><ul><li>A content delivery website that is focused on the control for generating the pages and URL will be using Hugo, Nuxt, Jekyll and other such tools.</li><li>A complex website with multiple functions and applications would be demanding the client-side features that would be developed in NextJS, GatsbyJS, SapperJS.</li><li>A website with thousands of pages and all in one solution kind of an environment will be a combination of both the above-mentioned tools.</li></ul><p>The quality of the Static site generator is that it re-uses the code and gets attached with any back-end. It supports many languages. The different framework of JavaScript is used like Vue, Angular, React and sometimes framework-less JS. The clients can rely on their existing development team for SSGs as if they are in .net they can work in SSG and get advantages of the Jamstack technology.&nbsp;</p><h3>APIs</h3><p>Connecting the two ends is another task like you cannot wholly detach these two ends and there should be something that must connect two technologies like the Front-end JavaScript should be related to back-end PHP. Think of a ‘Contact us form’ or the complex e-commerce websites, the form has been designed in JS but once you enter information and send or make it more complicated with the verification while sending the verification for account the back-end must respond.&nbsp;</p><p>So what is it that links them, it’s the APIs of course. Shopify also helps in creating a decoupled website through their REST APIs and GraphQL APIs like WordPress. The load balancing, scaling and security won’t be an issue now since the serverless function is managing all the problems through APIs.</p><p>GraphQL is the Query language that is used for APIs although it is sometimes confused with the database technology. Mostly applications require to fetch data from another source and GraphQL is working as a liaison.&nbsp;</p><h3>Headless CMS</h3><p>Imagine publishing the blogs, enhancing the product line, the website will be requiring some data and here is when you get to know about the headless CMS i.e. the ‘M’ for Markup of Jamstack architecture. How does headless sound to you? What would it be without a face and ahead? Don’t think hard on it and just imagine having an interface of the database of your website or maybe just a typical WordPress interface.</p><p>The classic CMS models are based on monolithic applications like WordPress where your front and back-end are based on the same platform. Whereas the headless means that the data layer has been separated from the presentation layer although you will have the UI for the admin interface for managing data. However, it will not give you an idea of how this data will be presented and how it would look like. There are two different types of headless CMS, one is git-based managing data in files like YAML and other is API based managing SQL.&nbsp; In any case, you get the interface of a regular CMS like headless WordPress.</p><p>WordPress is the most famous CMS and has been ruling the website development industry for years. It has been the prime choice for developers and non-developers in terms of a stable content management system. People know it as an easy way of building a completely dynamic website where the front-end and the back-end have been developed in PHP. But with time and revolution of technology, the decoupled approach got very famous, and all the businesses tried to follow the changing market trends. Although this decoupled approach had many benefits wherein the websites got faster as the content management system became the backend and the front end was managed through static site generators through APIs.&nbsp;</p><h4>An introduction to Decoupled WordPress&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</h4><p>&nbsp;WordPress follows a procedural way of design wherein the developers use the function-based code to provide a particular system so that it can be extended or modified. It’s a multi-functional environment where you can see the admin panel, database, extensions, plugins and more. With the help of REST API, the backend can be isolated like a model, and controllers can be grouped to handle the database using the API controllers that are operated in a separate layer. It helps in interacting with the cross-technology interface as the API sends data in the form of JSON format which is the text-base JS containing the data.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>This terminology is referred to as headless WordPress or headless CMS that separates the front-end from the content management system. In this case, the front-end is being managed separately from the back-end i.e. ideally a CMS like WordPress. They are connected with the help of APIs that enables the user to move the content from one platform to another quickly.&nbsp;</p><p>The headless WordPress is applicable for any theme of WordPress so that you can easily convert your existing website without losing any content or data using the REST API technique. Through this, the editor gets disables and starts to manage through the API. However, the default setting is still in a traditional way where you choose a complete package without getting into any development.&nbsp;</p><h4>Benefits of using Headless CMS</h4><p>Considering the buffering time of a WordPress website where the images and the content takes some time in loading because of the image file being attached to the WordPress file, the businesses worry about their sales. In the digital marketing era where you need to be proactive speed is everything. Shifting the load of front-end and back-end on separate locations have affected the performance of the websites to a greater extent. As we explained above, the front and back-end have been interacting through the end-points, hence they can be hosted on separate servers that are being optimised in respect of specific tasks.&nbsp;</p><p>This can also help in re-designing the website keeping in view the latest market trends and without disturbing the content and data on the CMS. One can find many attractive Gatsby WordPress themes on trending websites like CodeSpace where latest themes have been provided keeping in view business and the target audiences of each industry. Through the separate management of both the ends, the front-end developers and designers can only focus on the new design of the website using the existing data coming from the CMS. Here, they can make use of the latest libraries from ReactJS and Angular delivering a new web app.&nbsp;</p><p>Another benefit of using Headless WordPress is Data Security that is crucial for many businesses. It gets more difficult in exploiting the website since it's hidden from the public through the API layer and static version on the front-end.&nbsp;</p><h3>Deployment</h3><p>Once you have developed the website using the tools you must be looking for deploying the same to a Continuous Delivery Network (CDN). You will find several ways of doing so, like through Netlify who offers free hosting services, vercel, Zeit and many more. All they’ll do is push the pre-rendered markup to CDN which is useful in many ways like automatic load balancing, scaling and more. The most straightforward approach is to push the code using a repository like Git-hub and bitbucket, both will serve the purpose. This architecture also supports the changes as they are quickly deployed using the repository. Simply speaking, developers just have to make changes as and when required, execute the git push and commit. The service providers will notice the commits and will redeploy that will include the cache invalidation.&nbsp;</p><p>This keeps your website updated all the time and super fast with extraordinary speed and more secure from SQL injections. The hosting options are unlimited for Jamstack websites that offer free or low-cost services.&nbsp;</p><h3>Jamstack Website Benefits</h3><p>There are unlimited benefits of using Jamstack technology as website development architecture, some of them have been briefly described below;&nbsp;</p><ul><li>The user experiences a fast website with minimum loading time.</li><li>The new pages are generated quickly at the time of deployment.</li><li>The development cost is reduced because of a less complex structure.</li><li>The hosting can be done without any extra cost and sometimes free.</li><li>The tasks are divided as per the expertise as the front-end development team can focus on the design and other front end and debugging issues only.</li></ul><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>The new Jamstack is a revolution in the technology industry and it is capitalising the businesses by providing speed, security, simplicity, cost efficiency and ease to it. It is also helping in cutting down the processes and functions, re-defining the job descriptions by drawing a fine line amongst the developers and the designers so that both of them can work with freedom of approach. Many benefits are gathered with this architecture getting benefits of cloud computing with microservices and hosting and promotional offers. Still, there is a long way to go, not only websites but also the applications would be supported on this architecture to avail the benefits.&nbsp;</p><p>Although WordPress was not initially designed for the purpose of headless CMS it was needed that day to move on with the technology shifts. But if you do not have a developer with you, things would be a little more difficult as the two ends need to be integrated through simple APIs and the development team takes care of such issues, with several benefits of using headless CMS like speed, security, flexible integration of stacks i.e. publishing if the content on multiple channels, improved website user experience and much more.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Many websites are offering support and services in terms of themes for the headless WordPress and Gatsby, where you can find the latest themes to convert your website into a modern web app and boost your business by taking it to a higher level through digital media. They also provide a complete guide to creating new or shifting existing websites to Gatsby with Jamstack technique. Stackground is one of the platforms offering a no-code solution for <a href="https://www.stackground.com/jamstack-themes">Jamstack website development </a>for businesses and individuals. It is the only platform offering Jamstack themes and templates for building websites that provides the benefits of 10x speed, 3xsecurity and improved google ranking and more SEO traffic with increased conversion rate.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;</p>

JAMstack technology is a modern web development by decoupling the front and backend through APIs connection. It is secure and fast approach of development

How to Build a website through Jamstack Technology?

<p>You might have heard a lot about the Jamstack Applications and its benefits. Since the concept of Jamstack technology is to develop with the decoupled approach, separating the back and front end via different technologies and building a connection with APIs. In this blog, we will understand all the details of Jamstack structure to create your web application with headless WordPress as backend and GatsbyJS for front-end through GraphQL. This benefits in publishing post pages, setting up menus and widgets from a very commonly used editor like that of WordPress CMS. Gatsby will be serving as the Static Site Generator using ReactJS libraries to open up unlimited options.</p><h3>The Concept of Jamstack Technology</h3><p>The Jamstack applications are based on the JavaScript – APIs – Markup i.e. JS-based platform for front-end like Gatsby, APIs built on the connection of front and back-end of the 2 different layers like GraphQL and Markup language as the back-end like WordPress. Jamstack can do all the functionalities of a mobile application with a higher level of security and speed. Businesses and users now focus more on the frontend making the application visually attractive and efficient in terms of speed.</p><p>Now you see WordPress is the traditional way of building a website and from decades it has been a market leader for being an open-source and continuously growing platform. Gatsby, on the other hand, is the Static Site Generator traditionally used for generation of the markup HTML for static sites, but here static site doesn’t mean the obsolete static site.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Static generator</li><li>API</li><li>Headless CMS</li></ul><h3>The Concept of Static Site Generator</h3><p>&nbsp;The modern stack development is being made on the JavaScript-based Static Site Generator enabling the benefits of scalability, speed, security, and much more. The development of the front-end of the application on a separate programming setup has opened up doors for the modern programming languages like Node and React. This helps in adding more and more features to the application by still keeping it as a SPA (Single Page Application). Some of the benefits of using SSG as your front-end development tool are;</p><ul><li>It is based on the concept of SPA that does not require a page refresh to wait for the page to load properly.</li><li>The performance is much faster with the microservices concept rather than being attached with the monolithic structure with one platform for all needs</li><li>Defining the developer’s role by improving their experience through specified tasks and using GraphQL.</li></ul><h3>Why choose Gatsby as a static site generator?</h3><p>You may wonder if there are several SSGs and why would we recommend Gatsby, the most unique reason for this React-based platform building static progressive web applications. Gatsby can rehydrate the DOM allowing you to experiment more with the dynamic features that have been a limitation for other SSGs. You can start a simple Gatsby Site by installing the Gatsby-starter-default locally using the below-mentioned command.</p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>gatsby new my-gatsby-project<a href="https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby-starter-default"> https://github.com/gatsbyjs/gatsby-starter-default</a></td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>Its main feature is using the React Helmet that helps in adding meta tags and includes providing offline support with the plugins. When you build it through npm, it will provide a bunch of HTML files and you will get the free hosting. What if you need to add a custom logic after you are done with the development, what would be the connection and how would you execute.</p><p>The scalable nature of Gatsby application helps in growing the application or the site with the growing needs of the business. The adaptability and the serverless function based on JavaScript allows the developers to re-render the sections built on the API data. ReactJS can be as dynamic as the developer makes it keeping in view the user requirements and future needs.</p><h3>Serverless Function through Netlify</h3><p>Netlify is the unique platform for web development based on the Jamstack architecture multiplying the productivity of the organizations. It functions to unify the decoupled web elements through advanced logics from the local development enabling much faster, secure and scalable web applications. It adds serverless functionalities to low configuration solutions to the websites and the applications.</p><p>Let’s assume that you already have a Gatsby website that is required to be deployed through a repository like GitHub or Bitbucket. We already mentioned how to download from Gatsby starter default mentioned above. Here’s how you can add functions from Netlify;</p><ol><li>The first step is of installing Netlify CLI and then log in to your account, you can do that with the following command;</li></ol><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Npm I -g netlify-cli</td></tr><tr><td>Netlify login &lt; the netlify account that you maintained for free&gt;</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><ol><li>After successfully running the commands you can create the instance of Netlify for the Gatsby website by entering.</li></ol><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Netlify init</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><ol><li>The build command for Gatsby will be prompted at the third step which is noted below for the publish directory that’s public for Gatsby. CLI may also create it for you</li></ol><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Yarn build</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><ol><li>You can now create your Netlify Function from the set of templates at Netlify CLI for the serverless functions.</li></ol><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Netlify functions: create</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><ol><li>An autocomplete list will be presented at this stage, take the example of your requirement to simulate the API secrets and that can be performed from token-hider. This is just an example of Netlify functionalities, you can add more as desired.</li><li>You must ensure that the functional dependencies have already been installed, each function will come with its JSON package file and modules. The dependencies are important to clone the project and deploy it.</li><li>Netlify Dev has been established as a local proxy server.</li></ol><p>With some simple 7-steps a serverless environment can be established with Gatsby and Netlify, and the same can be verified through the localhost URL of the computer. Don’t you think you are missing the back-end? where are you going to put your content?</p><h3>The Concept of Headless as a Back-end</h3><p>The application and the website backend have always been maintained on the same platform and in the same tool. This was the monolithic architecture of the application which is much discouraged by Jamstack technology. The headless approach simply means that the Content Management System does not have a front-end although you are managing the content, pages and posts through the same CMS you prefer like Contentful and WordPress but they are only hooked for content management and not designing.</p><p>The APIs will also rest on the Jamstack CMS where the content is being managed, so you can say that the CMS like WordPress is capable of holding your content and the APIs. In the headless WordPress set up the user is not able to view the front-end from the WordPress admin panel. Since the CMS is acting as a back-end only, so SSG will serve as the front-end and both ends will be communicating via APIs.</p><h2>Why Headless WordPress?</h2><p>There have been certain limitations attached to WordPress that many people have believed that it cannot be a part of Jamstack technology. <a href="https://www.stackground.com/gatsby-wordpress-theme-templates">WordPress</a> does not follow the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern. The core developers at WordPress community have used hooks allowing other programmers to extend or modify the functionalities. The CMS has come up as an all-in-one solution and the headless feature has made it a member of the Jamstack community. WordPress can manage the database connections and is exposed to some APIs that have made it useful to decouple it from the front-end. With the REST API, you can separate the backend of WordPress as a controller and model and manage the data manipulation.</p><p>The decoupled approach has several benefits with its backend and a front end that are interacting through an endpoint, each of them has the separate server that can be optimized in respect of the task, take an example of WordPress backend using PHP application and the front-end using Node.JS making it efficient in respect of speed and security. It also helps in redesigning the front-end without making changes in the back-end database and the content. This rule-oriented approach is successful and more likely to be adopted by the technical people.</p><h3>Gatsby Theme Coupled with Headless WordPress</h3><p>Keeping in view the Jamstack architecture, the applications that are built using static site generators like Gatsby and headless CMS like WordPress have several benefits and are featured with functionalities that deliver scalable, secure and efficient web applications supporting businesses in increasing their sales and reaching more audience.&nbsp;</p><p>If we break down the features of the Gatsby Theme web developed through Headless WordPress, we get the below-mentioned features;</p><ol><li>Front-end developed on ReactJS and backend based on WordPress makes it 3 times faster.</li><li>The GraphQL works as the APIs on WordPress as WP GraphQL that is easy to manage and install.</li><li>PWA (progressive web application) works as a hybrid for mobile and web application enables you to work offline.</li><li>The publishing and the blog posts can be managed through pagination making it easier to categorize, customize and archive the pages.</li><li>The menu and the widgets are fully customizable.</li></ol><h3>Summarizing Gatsby WordPress with Benefits</h3><p>The modern stack web development has encouraged communities to work on improving the tools for high-performance web applications reaching out to businesses to mark their digital existence. There are many advantages of using Gatsby JS as front-end SSG for the application as noted below;</p><ul><li>Improved Performance</li><li>The Push Render Pre-cache Lazy load of the webpage architectural Pattern</li><li>Website Security</li><li>Easily Manageable</li><li>The Integration CMS</li><li>Sites Version Controlling</li><li>Webpage building tool</li></ul><p>The business today seeks the security of data, Search engine optimization, speed and reach of global customers through a modern web app with highly scalable and controlled management. This sounds a lot to ask, but Gatsby WordPress offers the easiest solution with a well-known editor and modern technology. All these benefits have been associated with Jamstack technology, developing websites using Jamstak technology has been made simple and easy with <a href="https://www.stackground.com/">Stackground</a> by using their no-code website templates and themes. Working on the easy to use visual editor has made building a Jamstack website just the traditional way.</p>

You can build your first  modern and fully functional JAMstack application through GatsbyJS SSG for frontend

A Guide to Build the Jamstack Applications with GatsbyJS

<h3>What is CMS?</h3><p>The Content Management System (CMS) is the simplest app-based platform for website development that can be used by tech and non-tech individuals. CMS has been long known for the development of fully dynamic websites that have a visual editor to manage front-end and back-end all at the same time. The most commonly used CMS is WordPress that helps in managing the website content and design from an easy to use the visual editor.</p><p>The idea of headless CMS emerged keeping in view the speed and security factor while managing all in one platform. Headless CMS is a back-end only CMS that has been separated from the presentation layer i.e. front-end.&nbsp; It shows that the functionalities of CMS like storage, creation and management have been separated from the user interface like those in the themes. The solutions that have been decoupled are a perfect description of Jamstack Architecture.</p><h3>Why was headless CMS required?</h3><p>Building websites has been a matter of a few minutes through the no-code website builders for individuals and businesses. The websites could be managed through visual editors by adding up a theme and some plugins supporting the desired functionalities. If you keep on increasing the functionalities on the website to fulfil your individual or business requirements your website may get slower and more complex in managing. The images and the videos you have uploaded on your website will take some time in loading at the client interface which may annoy the visitors and they leave without viewing it completely.</p><p>Furthermore, the usage of mobile devices also increased when people shifted to tabs and mobiles from desktop computers. The sufferings of the traditional content management systems started here where the websites built on CMS started to fail due to the monolithic structure of the web development architecture. Two major benefits of using headless CMS are mentioned below;</p><ul><li>The content can be delivered for display on any other device that is not attached permanently to the front-end.</li><li>Content from a centralized management platform can be rendered for multiple platforms.</li></ul><h3>Salient Features of Headless CMS</h3><p>Headless CMS has been loaded with many features that make it simple and modern at the same time by adding cost efficiency and speed to its products.</p><ul><li>The headless CMS provides pure content that can be used to build any application in any display style and any device. This makes the headless CMS rendering for multiple channels.</li><li>Although it doesn’t sound as simple as it is, the Jamstack technology saves some great expense for the business or individual through microservice feature based on decoupled back and front end.</li><li>It saves time because the front-end and back-end team are working at the same time and in parallel without creating any disturbance. The product web application or website can be published sooner saving time and money.The back-end is compatible with multiple platforms so a content placed at a single place can be published on multiple devices and forums.</li><li>The designing and re-designing can be changed anytime because the content and database are on a different platform and the front-end is only responsible for the user interface.</li><li>The process of deployment is easy and simple keeping the idea of pushing the back-end to SSG through a repository system.</li></ul><p>These can also be considered as the benefits of using headless CMS and integrating it with a different front-end for not only building websites but also applications. Irrespective of your profession and technical knowledge you can develop your perspective of headless CMS and Jamstack technology.</p><h3>Difference Between Traditional and Headless CMS</h3><p>The structural difference between traditional CMS and headless CMS is the head or the front-end display or client interface. When you are using headless CMS, the headrests at a static site generator or another platform that is continuously maintaining and developing the front-end by making it visibly better and error-free. Whereas the traditional CMS has an approach of developing an all-in-one platform making it slower and monolithic. The features and enhancements being published frequently have been slowing down the monolithic architecture-based websites as mentioned earlier. It works as a benefit on one hand where the user doesn’t have to bother about the new stack developments being working on the back-end and just have to install updates.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>Some of the benefits of using Headless CMS are;</p><ul><li>Using CMS is the traditional and classic source of website development that is a commonly used platform for everyone managing multiple tasks on a well-aware platform.</li><li>Choosing a technology that may suit your requirements may be a lengthy task as it involves a lot of research, brainstorming, technical knowledge while the CMS used as headless saves your time, resource and cost.</li><li>Your front-end developers can work on a separate and advanced platform rather than sticking to a structure where they have limited options for designs.</li><li>The headless CMS approach helps you in managing multiple devices using one platform and technology.</li><li>The headless CMS has been based on Jamstack technology that is based on the micro-services structure that provides benefits like speed, security and scalability.</li></ul><h3>The role of headless WordPress</h3><p>For many reasons the WordPress CMS has become an obvious choice for businesses and individuals as it is the top-ranked CMS for almost 15 years. However, the new emerging trend of the decoupled approach of website development made WordPress headless for connecting with other platforms and static site generators to remain the market leader. In this scenario, WordPress had to leave behind the templating and the theming functionality and become a content API manager.</p><p>This feature makes headless WordPress a part of the Jamstack community by hosting REST APIs and other back-end support. Some CMS are based on NodeJS that also require hosting location or server, just like WordPress that is based on PHP. But from a user’s point of view, the headless CMS either based on PHP or NodeJS is the endpoint of APIs.</p><h3>Technical and non-technical view for Headless</h3><p>The technical and non-technical people do not think alike, mostly the non-technical people in the field of website development are the businesses who are more focused toward the sales and other business operational matters and they do not bother to get into any detail of the platform or the approach. While on the other hand techies are more inclined towards the programming language, and architecture. Any standardized CMS would be a great fit for those who work as bloggers, copywriters with a visual editor showing any change on the front end instantly. If they choose to move to a more stable technical architecture where they have separate interfaces for management and view, they might be reluctant or feel the use of some coding unaware of the fact that no development background is required for developing modern stack website like that on Jamstack technology using headless WordPress and Gatsby SSG.</p><p>While on the other hand, the developers, consultants, product owners and other technical people know the content system having the external APIs for building applications for headless CMS. The APIs used within headless WordPress have greater control over the back-end along with the content management while other APIs have lesser control. The people who have more knowledge about the programming language can have better readability on the coding language and technique.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>Benefits of Headless CMS from User’s Vision</h3><p>There are different people and industries seeking webs solutions and they all have their requirements, reservations and comments. Their list of benefits has been built through their experience, market survey and business vision. Most of the tie, it’s the product owner who is looking into all the benefits but some other team members are also part of this;</p><h4>Marketing Team</h4><p>The marketing team is mostly worried about the SEO based content being available once on the front-end and require their website to be SEO friendly and rank higher in google. They are not one of the tech people who realize the design issues subject to the content they are delivering. So, they have a separate visual editor for maintaining content and changing it frequently.</p><h4>Development Team</h4><p>The development team can be divided into front-end and back-end independently with no restrictions involved for the stack and limitations of integration. Since there is no obstacle in using programming language so they are open for back-end and front-end. The front-end developers can create beautiful interfaces on their own choice of programming tool and libraries.</p><h4>Designing Team</h4><p>Another important team member involved in the product development is the designers who are looking at the best vision of the user interface regardless of framework, technology and content. The design team need beautiful animated images and videos to be available on the user interface making each colour and text speak for itself. So, they have open ground for creating the design of their dreams.</p><h4>Team Beneficiaries – The End-User</h4><p>How can we ignore who we are making all this for? The ultimate beneficiary of this modern stack development is the users and visitors, they experience fast and responsive website and apps. They can view their page without missing any content or information on any device they use, either desktop, tabs or mobile devices.</p><h4>Working of Headless CMS</h4><p>You may wonder if you do not have a presentation layer how would you idealize your content view and improve it accordingly? How do they work? How are they connected to the front-end? What if you change something from the back-end, how it will be changed on the presentation layer?</p><p>The answer to all these questions lies in the connector that we call APIs and processing of a headless CMS. So here are the simple processing steps of the headless CMS that will answer all your queries and reservations regarding headless CMS.</p><ol><li>The content is entered on the headless CMS as of regular practice but it does not show any presentation layer.</li><li>APIs, i.e. WP GraphQL in case of WordPress working as a plugin to act as API function, will be exposed to the presentation layer for transferring the data fetched from backend and vice versa. The function of RESTful APIs in case of headless CMS is;</li></ol><ul><li>Add, Modify and delete any record</li><li>Get records all or one at a time</li><li>Build an end-to-end connection between the front and backend</li></ul><ol><li>The headless WordPress is managed through its regular visual editor and you can manage without any prior development knowledge for APIs or database management.</li></ol><h4>The Future of Headless CMS</h4><p>Everyone urges to collect the content of high quality and changing the content and designs with the changing trends of the business community is more important. The businesses who change with the changing trends grow faster and have a more secure market share. Same goes for the technology trends, we have observed changing technology trends for building websites and developing applications. One stack took over the other with time, research and a lot of working on the drawbacks of the previous one.</p><p>It’s not a very long time ago that we were discussing the benefits of Content management systems like WordPress and telling people how they can grow their businesses by building their website based on WordPress CMS. One thing in the discussion didn’t change and that is using WordPress, but it went headless this time to match the needs of Jamstack technology.</p><p>The headless CMS is the future for website development along with its integration with Static site generators like GatsbyJS. The modern stack development and revised architectures of the development have improvised the web with several benefits and giving businesses more global customers and other SEO benefits and more control over the businesses. Hence, it can be said the future of the web is brighter with the open community networks working on the improvements of the legacy systems.&nbsp;</p><p>The platforms that have been working on developing Jamstack web solutions are using a variety of CMS like Contentful, Ghost, strapi, netlify CMS, WordPress and many more. Stackground is one the platforms using headless wordpress for developing Jamstack website themes and templates. Many other platforms use different platforms for their frontend and backend, <a href="https://www.stackground.com/">Stackground </a>is the only no-code web development platform using Gatsby as static site generator and WordPress as its headless CMS facilitating the users by using its commonly used platforms.</p>

The rise of the headless CMS trend has been promoting JAMstack technology with innovation in web development adding speed, security and scalability.

Explaining Headless CMS in just 4 minutes

<p>&nbsp;</p><p>The demand for the software has been exceeding the supply of developers and coders in this era, and more applications and websites are being requested and that being demanded instantly leaving less time for development from scratch. This has led the no-code development platform to make enough room in the industry helping an increasing number of the organizations seeking software solutions without getting into the developers’ den. Here is where the No-Code Development Platform (NCDP) stepped in and gradually took the IT industry like a dark storm and today we see a number of people who seek tools and other ready-to-implement solutions instead of developing the applications and websites.</p><h3>What is No-Code Development?</h3><p>The No-code development provides the path for building the mobile and web applications without writing the code in any programming language.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>No-code development Platform</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In simple language, NCDP is the development platform using the visual development environment that allows the non-technical people to create their applications by using the methods like drag and drop, adding components and more such simple steps. These simple steps are known as the user interface or sometimes the front-end configuration that does not require any coding and development knowledge. It is related to low-code development since it is used for the purpose of expediting the process of application development.</p><p>The CEO of Github, Chris Wanstrath stated <i>“The future of coding is no code at all”.</i></p><p>Does that sound good? For non-technical business users, it does, but may not ignore the fact that there are a number of programmers writing long codes for designing such no-code platforms. The no-code platforms use the technique of re-usable codes for each selection of the user from drag and drop menu or other configuration menu.</p><h3>&nbsp;</h3><h4>Describing the concept of no-code</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>In a layman’s language it is like you want to develop an application or build your website and you do not know how to code, you seek some options on web that offer you to build your website or app by using their platform where you just have to choose the features from the menu and deploy it on the same platform. Take an example of designing a form you just have to choose the fields from options available like name, address, email address and occupation and later after completing and publishing you remember you also needed the mobile number and you get back to it choose the option and publish.</p><p>If you are running a small business and don't own a fully equipped IT department in it including developers or you don’t have enough capital to afford a team of professional developers and service providers, NCDP is the best and most cost-efficient option available for you. It authorizes the innovatively use of the power of software and controls your business operation from your own chosen perspective.</p><p>The software solutions are reducing the chances of human error, keeping data safe and data entry way easier. The data is stored on cloud servers keeping them secure and retrieval of data is also easy as it is stored smartly through an intelligent system. The data entry has been more convenient and efficient with the software solutions.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Benefits of using NCDP</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The traditional business solutions have changed and the role of the IT managers shifted from development to configuration. The major benefit of using a no-code solution is the cost, although you see the monthly charges the service providers are asking for but you are saving the cost of hiring the developers and hosting. The other benefits may include;</p><p>-&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Accessibility of the solution providers has become very easy and the numbers have been increasing really fast. The potential application creators have increased as many of the business analysts of the enterprises are using codeless solutions and guiding the businesses therein in getting a suitable solution tailor-made as per the requirement.</p><p>-&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Agile nature of the software being developed over a no-code development platform helps the organizations in accepting the new technology as their mode of completing the tasks. The application creation process is based on the user-interface so the user experiences a flexible environment that is implemented in parts and not all at once.</p><p>-&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; The Richly Featured solutions are fully equipped with multiple options, reports, designs formats and all based on the type of business and industry.</p><h3>Why choose No-code Development Platform?</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The no-code platforms have big teams for development, designing and deployment and they are working on the drag and drop solution for the users and that matches their exact business requirements.</p><h4>Developing Software Solutions</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The developed solutions involve lengthy hiring processes and long meetings to decide the structure, but unfortunately the business officials on the first stage do not know how the software will look like as they don’t have any interface. All they can do is trust the developers on what they are understanding from the description being provided to them.</p><p>The difference in opinion and understanding on both ends may sometimes lead to unacceptance of the software that has been developed for them. Since the developers mostly don't have the exact interface for the business users as what they will ultimately get is only a general template that has multiple options that are not even required by the industry.</p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Developed Solution</td><td>No-Code Solution</td></tr><tr><td>Expensive developer</td><td>All-in-one Annual or Monthly cost for NCDP</td></tr><tr><td>No prior user interface</td><td>Complete user interface</td></tr><tr><td>Maintenance and modification cost</td><td>Complete configuration and modification through UI</td></tr><tr><td>Higher Enhancement cost</td><td>Minimal cost for new modules or package changes</td></tr><tr><td>Deployment expense</td><td>Deployment included</td></tr><tr><td>Overhead cost</td><td>No over and above expenses</td></tr><tr><td>Security and backup cost</td><td>Data security and backup expense included</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>No-Code Solutions</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>On the other hand, the no-code solutions are convenient and easy as the real-time code building technique is used using the user interface where the user knows how it is going to look like. Each field and tool are hand-picked considering the fact that this is exactly what they need. The NCDPs have helped the organizations in building mobile and web applications without hiring software solutions providing vendors or a bunch of expensive developers. Sometimes implementing change in organization is very difficult and the end-user is reluctant to change in the working environment.</p><p>The NCDPs provide internal and external tools for integration and linking without any fail-over issues and you have a convenient software that can get data from the excel sheet or self-designed templates. As a developer I have to write long codes and APIs to integrate two systems or even if the client desire to upload an Excel sheet to get data in the system there is a list of dependencies and tasks that have to be performed and if any single cell of the excel sheet contain an information that is not predefined in the code that is left blank and the ID is generated by the system although data doesn’t exist. However, the no-code solutions have a list of fail-over libraries already defined since hundreds of developers are working on a single solution. Even if there is a bug in the system and leaves any issue behind or any stone unturned the updates provided by the platforms are fixed for such discrepancies.</p><h3>&nbsp;What is the difference between no-code and low-code?</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Some people are unable to differentiate between no-code and low-code as they sound the same and also have some similarities. The no-code solution might have some limitations and may restrict users at some point of time as that is based on declarative programming that means it understands “what you want” and not “how you want”. The no-code in such a way works opposite of a traditional system where the front-end is communicating with the back-end as for what is required.</p><p>In contrast to it, the low-code solution is a bridge between the gap that is created because of the limitation in the no-code solutions. Take an example of building all the applications with the no-code solution and only creating the remaining part through programming. This is the description for low-code as it is a combination of both. Low-code approach is also suitable for the non-technical people but maybe sometime a developer may require it. Some of the low code platforms have the pre-built functionalities enabling the users to build software applications. Partially developed and partially un-developed low-code platforms are limitless in terms of modules and requirements.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>How does No-Code Development Technology Work?</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The No-code development technology is a process of building the application from front-end. It does not mean that the programming language, code and logic is not written behind the front-end. It is pre-written code and pre-defined logic that are waiting for a call from the front-end. By choosing a certain field or formula you activate the code written behind it and the remaining code is still available on the back-end you just trigger it by requesting it over your screen.&nbsp;</p><p>The traditional development structure is where you write a code of how the front end should look like and how it should interact. Although the no-code also includes some extra code writers for the behavior of the front end so you must understand that apparently no-code does not mean there is no programming, it means it might involve more coding than traditional apps.&nbsp;</p><h3>How to make a website on the no-code platform?</h3><p>The NCDP is the user interface builder that can rapidly show results on the user screen through the drag and drop or menu option available for the user. One can instantly view the screen on desktop, mobile or tab. Such visual models have greatly replaced the programming complexity allowing the business managers to organize and manage their data easily.</p><h4>Website builder</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There are a number of options available for no-code development of web or mobile applications and websites. Thake example of WordPress which is one of the finest Content management software in the industry and it is a simplest example of no-code solution. You don’t have to write a programming language although the HTML, CSS and Php code is already written in it once you build your website through a plugin by choosing a certain theme.</p><p>&nbsp;On the other hand, the static site generators like Gatsby that are also a good example of no-code solutions. There is the user interface available where you choose the front-end of the website and work on it through a simple menu. You have not written a single programming code for any of the options; instead you don’t know what’s going on behind the scene.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><h4>Application Builder</h4><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Similarly, there are other platforms that help in building applications and software solutions like Shopify who are providing software solutions and you just have to drag and drop the field, choose the reports you need, the fields required for a form and all other features. The system asks your industry and offers some themes and once you select as per your requirement you have an interface where you have your products section to be defined, the reports, graphs you need and hundreds of choices.</p><h3>Pros and Cons of No-Code Solutions</h3><p>You cannot do all the things on your own, you must get relaxation from any side where possible and also the fact is not everyone can do everything although you can try but you cannot. Like being a developer, I can develop web applications in a certain language but I can’t be a project manager who is managing business or I cannot be a salesperson who is making marketing campaigns. Every person has a specialty and this is the best they can do.&nbsp; The NCDPs are such specialties in the business world where they have business as well as IT teams. However, there are certain benefits as well as limitations of the platform as mentioned below;</p><h4>Pros of No-Code</h4><p>Cost Efficient:</p><p>The cost of managing an IT team is expensive as the developers are expensive and there you have to take care of front-end developers, back-end developers, designers, DB managers and business analysts. While using a no-code solution when you purchase a solution you may or may not require a business analyst to manage the application as per your requirement.</p><p>Agile Nature of Solution:</p><p>&nbsp;The feature of using drag and drop facility and having a real-time view the application becomes agile as you can make users for it and start for one single form and gradually add more features to it since you have your remote-control and at any stage you realize that your end user is not accepting it you can make minor changes or in worst scenario you can stop the contract.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>More Productive:</p><p>&nbsp;Since the no-code is developed and implemented instantly and no extra staff is occupied, they can focus on their respective role making the organization more productive and efficient with the solution. It does not add extra workload on the staff that may affect their performance.</p><p>Convenient Modification:</p><p>&nbsp;When you realize that a certain form is not meeting your exact requirement or is lacking something you can add or remove any such field or column from it. By choosing the basic option at the initial stage if you think it is benefiting you and now you can move to an advanced version, you can easily change your plan without disturbing any data or production environment.&nbsp;</p><h4>Cons of No-Code</h4><p>Rigid Templates:</p><p>The templates that are available are rigid in terms of their selections and schema. If you choose one form you can not change the industry or other ad-on however some platforms offer multiple view options like light, dark, bright but not all.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>In-accessible Source Code:</p><p>The user does not have any access to the source code and production server on no-code development platform. While when you are developing software by your team you have all the source code and DB access.</p><p>Security concerns for lesser control:</p><p>Some businesses have greater security concerns for their data as you have lesser control over the back-end, database and the server of the software. Although the disclaimer is signed between the organization and the NCDP.&nbsp;</p><h3>Conclusion</h3><p>If you choose to go for a software solution you are clearing up your workload efficiently and resolving complaints and delays you have been facing since long. Sometimes it takes months to complete the software application as desired over the NDCP also but it is subject to your own availability.</p><p>Some of the finest no-code development platforms are noted below</p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Airtable</td><td>Hybrid database applied over simple spreadsheet</td></tr><tr><td>Nintex</td><td>Business process manager with automation tools</td></tr><tr><td>Salesforce</td><td>Enterprise service for deploying solutions</td></tr><tr><td>Bubble</td><td>A web application development platform</td></tr><tr><td>BP Logix</td><td>Digital transformation solution based on AI</td></tr><tr><td>Nutshell</td><td>CRM for sales automation</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The no-code development approach is based on the simple design with standardized UIs and re-usable components for the application. The beauty of the code is that it can be plugged in and ejected as and when required. You can do all the services on one single platform from front-end to back-end and also can get scheduled backup, free and automatic SSL and many more ad-on features making the application fully equipped.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

No code development is Popular method of web development with simple drag and drop function added by businesses to build websites and applications

Why No code Development is Trending? and How to Get Started

<p>The online business performance is measured by measuring the website performance. A fast website benefits the business with excellent customer experience with your product and services. Many researchers have concluded that the recommended time for loading a web page for your business should not exceed 3 seconds. The longer the website takes to pile on the user screen, the worst will be the conversion and bounce rate.</p><p>Google ranking is so important to run and establish the businesses and negative user experiences reduce the ranking which down-grade your business. There are a number of factors involved in the performance of the website like mobile friendly, hosting, images on the pages and more.</p><p>The must consider below mentioned points to speed-up your e-commerce website</p><ul><li>Investigation of poor performance through website Audit procedures.</li><li>Changing the hosting of the website</li><li>Using a Continuous Delivery Network</li><li>Limiting the Web page size if and where required</li><li>Choose a refined technology like JAMstack technology.</li></ul><h2>Increase Conversion Rate with Easy Navigation</h2><p>The website must have a secure navigation facility to achieve a higher conversion rate. The length of the procedure to buy a product or service from your website is very important as the number of clicks to make until the end. Lengthy process for purchase or login may increase chances of the visitor leaving the page without purchasing, making a payment or showing interest. Mobile browsing has increased dramatically as people search from mobile rather than using laptops or desktops. So, the website must be mobile-friendly, and it requires fast browsing on a slower network.</p><h2>Fast Websites for better business</h2><p>The speed is key to success, being the first launch in the market, speedy websites, speedy delivery, speedy sale and more. Many factors affect the website speed</p><ul><li>Website Development Tool that has been used like Content Management System like WordPress, Static Site generators like Gatsby.</li><li>Technology followed by those tools, like JAMstack technology or monolithic structure.</li><li>The number of images, videos and content on the website.</li></ul><p>It has been stated that usually, a visitor leaves the website if it has taken longer than 3 seconds in loading fully. Amazon claims that they can lose almost 1.6 billion USD from their revenue in sales each year if their website has taken a second longer than usual in loading. This is a trusted platform, but it shows you how a visitor may react on a slow website.</p><h2>Monitoring on the Improvement</h2><p>With all the factors involved like SEO, digital marketing, website technology and speed, business industry and more the optimization of the performance has always been the hottest topic. You must keep an eye on the competitors and your own business strategies to keep your online business going. Unfortunately, the business owners in the ecommerce industry regularly miss opportunities because of slow websites. The problem starts from the very beginning when choosing the platform for their businesses. With less knowledge of technology, they choose no-code platforms without investigating the factors mentioned above. Although no-code technology is the most trusted and trending method of doing business, developing apps and building websites yet you must see the reviews, the technology, the templates and the limitations involved by launches your business with them.</p><h2>Best Practices to Enhance the Website Performance</h2><p>There are some of the practices that are being followed by successful e-commerce businesses that can be considered as a smarter choice;</p><ul><li>Using Google Analytics for enhanced Ecommerce provides great information about the pre-purchase behaviour of visitors and the overall performance of the product.</li><li>How the online buyers search during their funnel of online shopping and how far they go in making a specific choice.</li><li>Which products are left in the cart and not finalised by the buyer?</li><li>There are several powerful e-commerce website platforms that include all the factors, like google analytics, SEO, product listing, performance and more. It is up to you as a business owner what you choose and how you are carry forward because it is an ongoing process, not a one-time job.</li></ul><p>&nbsp;</p>

The online business performance is measured by measuring the website performance. A fast website benefits the business with excellent customer experience with your product and services.

Enhance your Business with a Faster Website

<p>Gatsby is an open-source framework that has been based on React to help developers build fast websites and applications. You might be wondering that why would someone need a framework over another framework since React is a tool for the development of websites through its library that has some core functionalities.&nbsp; You might have heard a million times that Gatsby is a static site generator that has been built on ReactJS. But this doesn’t explain all and provide a complete understanding of Gatsby.&nbsp;</p><h3>What Is GatsbyJS? An Introduction</h3><p>&nbsp;</p><p>As per the definition says, Gatsby is a static progressive web application generator that helps in getting the code and the data separated as per the JAMstack technology using the React libraries. It was founded in May 2015 with a simple vision of building websites with ReactJS It generates a static version of the website that is loading critical information at the front end from the HTML, CSS, JS and data making it faster. Once the web page has been loaded it fetches the pages so that the other pages are loaded on the blink of an eye. The static sites are one’s that are rendering on run time and the server-side code and data are not attached with it improving the performance of website exceptionally good.&nbsp;</p><p>They claim that their mission is to make websites development fun and this is turning out to be very true with time. It has the capability of integrating with any data source whether its WordPress, Drupal, Shopify, stripe or excel. It can pull the content and create them into web pages with a one-line code making it super easy and convenient.&nbsp;</p><h3>A Brief Background&nbsp;</h3><p>Kyle Mathews the founder and CEO of GatsbyJS, he is truly a visionary man who had the thought of increasing the pace of websites through technology keeping the data secure. Sam Bhagwat is also a co-founder and COO at Gatsby. Since Kyle had a background of working as a front-end developer in Novel and Pantheon System Inc and consultant at various forums, he has a great exposure towards the web apps. Gatsby is not the only success start-up by him as he has been foundering at Eduglu, an education technology company and RelateRocket. Kyle is a big-time researcher and a reader and his thoughtful career completely justify this personal interest.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p>It has been almost 5 years now and Gatsby has become a comprehensive platform for developing modern websites.&nbsp; Gatsby has grown not only as a business but also as a vision and an idea. The small seed of the idea of the faster web app has grown to a fruitful tree&nbsp;</p><h3>Why should you choose Gatsby?</h3><p>You might be thinking that there are many other static site generators like Jekyll, Hugo so what is so special about Gatsby. It is using the most popular and latest technologies like ReactJS, GraphQL, webpack, JavaScript and CSS that helps in building the progressive web apps that are following the latest standards of the web that have been optimized to perform brilliantly.&nbsp;</p><p>The best feature that will make you choose Gatsby is that it easily configures with other platforms making it highly configurable and flexible. The data can be sourced from several Content Management Systems like WordPress or any other of your choice.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><h3>Finding GatsbyJS</h3><p>You can have complete access to Gatsby with installation and complete guide on their official website. They believe in providing complete guidance with tutorials and documentation. Since Gatsby is a new technology you would require headless CMS for the GatsbyJS themes and APIs to integrate the CMS with the front end.&nbsp;</p><p>GraphQL APIs would be used in headless CMS you can push code through GitHub or Bit Bucket to publish your Gatsby website.&nbsp;</p><h3>Summarizing GatsbyJS&nbsp;</h3><p>In this revolutionary era, where digital marketing has increased to a greater extent and buyers being more intelligent as they research before buying, every business requires a speedy website that has been modernized with the latest trending designed. <a href="https://www.stackground.com/">Stackground</a> is one of the platforms offering Jamstack website templates and themes, easily manageable through a visual editor allowing users to make changes suiting their brand requirement.&nbsp;</p><p>So, start today and get on Gatsby, get your business online or give a new life to your legacy website. You must keep the below-mentioned finding in mind,&nbsp;</p><ul><li>It’s a Static Site Generator</li><li>It uses GraphQL, React and Node.</li><li>Its main benefit is speed and security.</li><li>It is fully equipped with documents and a stable community that is growing each day that includes developers and authors.</li></ul>

What is Gatsby Themes? How is this website development platform different from other static site generators and can help in making 10x faster websites using ReactJS