What is GatsbyJS? Why is it the preferred Static Site Generator for Jamstack websites?
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. 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.
What Is GatsbyJS? An Introduction
As 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 the website exceptionally well.
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.
A Brief Background
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 a consultant at various forums, he has great exposure towards the web apps. Gatsby is not the only successful 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 justifies this personal interest.
It has been almost 5 years now and Gatsby has become a comprehensive platform for developing modern websites. 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
Why should you choose Gatsby?
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.
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.
Finding GatsbyJS
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.
GraphQL APIs would be used in headless CMS you can push code through GitHub or Bit Bucket to publish your Gatsby website.
Summarizing GatsbyJS
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. Stackground 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 requirements.
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,
- It’s a Static Site Generator
- It uses GraphQL, React and Node.
- Its main benefit is speed and security.
- It is fully equipped with documents and a stable community that is growing each day that includes developers and authors.