As a senior Web Dev, while I totally agree on the principle, it's still hard nowadays to sell these static sites to clients. They usually see Wordpress or tell you they want it to manage their content. I sometimes also see clients that got shipped a static site, just the build, not the sources and say they can't do anything with these and when you tell them you can't do anything without the sources to rebuild they just feel scammed. The inbetween with WP as the CMS and the front with a react, go, or node seems the way to go. Nice video otherwise, nice to see popular youtuber promoting static sites generators !
Thanks Mathieu I consider myself a hobbyist when it comes to web development. I always like tinkering, but professionally I always wince when I have to setup a LAMP stack for a WP install lol.
I feel you. I had to pull out a WP + WooCommerce combo just 2 days ago for a few hours because it was getting ddosed. The cons of being the most popular CMS on the web. Feels like WP is the Windows of CMS while these new techs are the Linuxes of the web. Enthousiast drive the best, while trying to democratize them and end up maintaining the most popular products that are just convenient, not the best.
As a simple user of websites which use Wordpress or SquareSpace I run away screaming because I know even before visiting their website that it will be a bad user-experience with dynamically loading pages (not seeing everything at once, so having to scroll and wait, scroll and wait again) and an insane picture to text ratio. I am with Chris on the static websites, but just from a userperspective. I can work with html and css but I haven't made websites so I leave the technical judgement to people like Mathieu.
I was a website developer and obviously I wouldn’t give my clients a static website, especially without their consentement, cause like you said they can’t edit it. But as for myself, I definitely prefer to use a static site generator, cause I want it to be fast and efficient and I don’t mind to make some markup and even go retouch the code of a theme. Years ago I jumped on the wagon of Wordpress and its visual page builders.m, because it was like a revolution in the fast web development. But now, I think it’s really over bloated and the PHP language is a total mess. I searched for a replacement for a longtime and now I think I found it. For the best. Though, everybody should use what they are comfortable with.
I would never use WordPress for myself, but as a freelancer that is where the vast majority of my paycheck comes from. All of my highest paying jobs are WordPress sites.
I'm also a fan of static sites but I understand the "appeal" of the dynamic sites. Right now, I help a friend maintain two sites: one is static and one is in Wordpress. The Wordpress site is actually really fast, due to the theme we're using. The theme developers use some "tricks" with JavaScript to get the content loading really fast BUT some things are really a pain to change or control. With the static site, it's all on me which makes it much easier for me to change. Thanks for posting!
Fun fact: NGINX, Typescriptlang, and ReactJS sites are built with WordPress as a back-end solution. 😉 Anyway, speed is not the only thing you need to look into when building a site. Also, according to W3Techs, WordPress is powering 43% of the internet. So, it's no surprise that it's the most exploited. The number can be higher since some sites only use WordPress for back-ends.
I used my AWS account and lightsail to get a wordpress site up in minutes because it was the fastest way to get content out to the world. Oftentimes, how FAST you can get an MVP is more important than how you put the MVP together. You can always iterate later, but I think CMS is a great way for many people to get the MVP they need and then extend it from there. As they need to scale they might want a different solution, but its often the best place to start. Theres a reason why Wordpress' market share is 43% of all websites.
Great video man! Rn I'm thinking about purchasing a website just for simple stuff and to create my own email addresses when I need to without the use Google, which I've used in the past for convenience. Thanks for another informative video! But if I purchase a domain I would be looking for security.
That’s not fair regarding WordPress, if you build a custom theme you can make it performant. You can also use WordPress as a headless CMS with a static site generator and get the best of both worlds.
Agreed, you totally can, its just only a few do. I mentioned the static site generator from Wordpress CMS at the end of the video. These days, exposing and install wordpress with the 5 min install is just plain dangerous and not recommended. imo.
@Richard Dale I agree with Chris on this one. The problem is not so much with what can be done but with the fact that they offer a low threshold to people who know little about software and consequently you get bad websites. There is no blame here other than maybe bad defaults of WordPress. It is a bit like Python, Python can be incredibly useful for certain tasks but also it offers a low threshold for programming to people who lack foundational knowledge and consequently you get slow running software. It is not Python's fault but it is the consequence of that low threshold.
I am using a Thrive Themes for every WP needs. Basically lets you get rid of nearly all the other plugins. They focus on speed whether we talk website speed or speed of your work. My sites are all very fast on gtmetrix too but that also thanks to a cloudflare and image cdn. I understand what are you suggesting with this video and must agree. However I found my way around it and now I just make sites fast and they are static, too. I think its really about finding the style and the way. Once you understand what is actually WP downside and you eliminate it, the path is clearer. Then you find yourself rather making your own themes then buying them and you avoid those crappy frameworks, theme options, different scripts and junk. I believe once you find out how you gonna make it, you will stop messing around with tutorials, plugins, themes off the internet and learning all the frameworks. You just build it with the ones you know well - this is where I recommend Thrive Themes or similar. Something you can rely on and use for all purposes, without jumping around from theme to theme, plugin to plugin.
I went with one of the third options, NameCheap recently, but I’ve heard good things about WebFlow, which is less expensive than SquareSpace but more than NameCheap per month or year.
One of the principle reasons to use Wordpress are its plugins. It offers features and logic, i.e. extensibility. That's very compelling. If your content is static, a static page regenerator makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, the slower page load speed in Wordpress is a reasonable compromise to gain the ability to have it do so much other stuff.
This video was sponsored by SquareSpace. If you need squares, we've got squares. Come and get your freaking squares. Your freaking squares are all your square needs all the freaking time. We've got little squares and big squares and even cubes. Have you ever seen a freaking cube? Ever seen Cube 2 supercube? Pretty good. Not as good as superman, but for what a movie is. SquareSpace. If you've got a space, we've got a square for you.
I've been slowly switching everything to Md documents, even manuscripts for scientific publications. I love the flexibility of publishing to HTML/PDF and publishing a site from a git push. I also run a squarespace site and doing repetitive things through the web GUI is so slow compared to code.
Our website is static generated using github and netlfiy. We also push media from AWS cloudfront CDN. Our cloudmetrix score is A: Performance 100%: Structure 97%: Largest Contentful Paint 311ms: Total Blocking Time 0ms: Cumulative Layout Shift 0.01 =) I had no idea before this video, but was pleasantly surprised. We offer the same deal for our customers who want simple brochure style websites...super cheap to host, super quick to deploy and secure. But yes the downside is they can't make their own changes - but we are upfront with them about that, and our hosting fee includes basic changes.
About a month ago, I hated Linux.......i couldnt be arsed putting the effort in to learn it...........and I used think you guys that go on about Operating Systems all the time are obsessed, couldnt understand it......but for the past week, things have changed.........I cant stop customizing it...........I cant stop learning new commands.........Im hooked........Im an addict. Hello my name is R and Im addict. Linux would be perfect if only I made just this one more little tweak Im gonna be dreaming about Linux.
@@wayland7150 Yeah, I think ya really do work things out in your sleep/dreams and get a better grasp of things and Linuix is something worth learning about :)
Typically love your videos, but this extremely one-sided. Professionally, WP is the right play 99% of the time. When it comes to actual marketing, gimmicks like Wix and Squarespace are garbage. If the dev knows what he’s doing, optimizing for site speed and security is a cake walk. And good luck even attempting to do SEO and schema on Wix/SS. All of our clients get WP, period. No negotiation.
I would love if you could do more Hugo tutorials. I have tried to use a few different hugo templates and failed. I know nothing about markdown, or any other coding language besides bash. I have managed to build a static site using Hugo, that I host on a raspberry pi, but it was very hard earned. A good tutorial series could be helpful.
impossible only half an hour ago i was in your website trying to figure out how did you build it , bcs i m trying to build one and i m a newbie . thank you for your work , a fan from Algeria.
Awesome video Chris! Thank you for this amazing concept of static sites. Personally, i started to test Simply Static Plugin for WordPress yesterday. This allows to convert my wordpress website to a static one with a click of a button. I still have the familiarity of wordpress but now I have also the speed of static sites. I can install WordPress in a completely contained environment (on a local host or even vm) and then push the outcome alone to the public. I don't even have to use heavy and slow security plugins because there is really NOTHING TO HACK ANYMORE!! At the same time my site decreased from over 400 mb all the way down to 1,5 mb which is just completely insane. If you want to or just have to keep WordPress and it's familiar environment but at the same time you would like to remove most of its vulnerabilities, Simply Static is definitely a way to go! The only issue I have now is how to generate my xml sitemap for sites kept on the local host but with my main domain inside the file. I'm still trying to figure that out.
i have extensive experience with WordPress/squarespace/ wix since in my previous job that was all i did for client's and i hated it so much. not only was the drag and drop experience frustrating to work with, but basic features would force uou to buy a higher tier membership. WordPress was my favorite but the constant need for updates and security concerns not only with WordPress core but the actual hosting provider was a pain point. sometimes the basics its the best solution. my recomendation to you is to use yaml files, or json data to populate your content it will make it easier to edit instead of doing inline markup. just my thoughts
Those services work for people that don't have or don't want to learn what they have to. Some people also aren't that comfortable doing this stuff on their own. For them, paying for a service to help them do it is worth it. For more technically inclined people, it may be easy to do it another way. I learned HTML and css coding in high school, so a lot of the prebuilt things are very limiting for me. But for people who just want a low maintenance site that has 24/7 customer support, these services do a great job.
Squarspace or wordpress is pretty much tool for anyone who want to have some sort of site/shop/whatever. The same person can make site, maintain it and update it content with minimal knowledge about anything "site related". Solution you showed require knowledge and require working with code. For me it's comparing orange to tank. Also, I don't think that load time matter that much from the user perspective. It's can have impact on general UX, but I can't call it "the most important".
If the visitor really wants to see the site they will wait. If they are just flipping through random websites they won't wait. The most important visitors will wait.
If the visitor really wants to see the site they will wait. If they are just flipping through random websites they won't wait. The most important visitors will wait.
Best of both worlds: i love the wordpress templates. But i generate static html out of it. Did that 10 years ago using a “spider” plugin in firefox or chrome. When you how to optimize pictures or use jpegmini or similar you reduce load times. Cheapo and easy and ultra fast and mega secure.
Pictureofhotdog is actually comparable to the size of your site, actually slightly larger and unpacks more. The second one is definitely slow just because of high hi-res images, which is expected with any service dynamic or not. Honestly i don't think dynamic really slows you down that much, and if it does you can always use some sort of caching. I think you're not that far off from just hosting your own python or go server which is gonna give you much more flexibility
Anything you recommend for simple blogging? The case is, I have a client who was happy with the static website I made with svelte, but now wants to add a blog-style section.
What about storing posts in Markdown in some database, and then if new post pops out, you are converting it (with random M to HTML converter) to HTML and updating main page
This video was very confusing. You talked about how bad SP is and WP on loading. I get that. To me, you could be a little clearer on what a static site is. Faster load times. Layout shifts. I'm going back over 7:11 to see if I am missing something. Had to listen for the word "Podia" and then do a search. Found their wiki and I am going over it now, to get a better under understanding. I appreciate the technical aspects that you are covering, but I think a little more general coverage of the platform would have been appreciated.
HTML is a simple text based language that all websites use to size and position text and images on the page. If the pages are stored on the server as HTML text files then that's a static site. No processing, just throw them at the visitors web browser as-is. A dynamic site such as Word Press uses a programming language such as PHP to formulate the HTML from data pulled from a database when ever the visitor clicks on the site. So before they see anything the server has to do a tonne of work building the web page from scratch, it does not even exist to begin with. Then it can throw the generated HTML at the visitor's browser. Not only that but the HTML is usually more complex and poorly optimised. Dynamic web sites are therefore slower, a lot slower in the case of Word Press. The advantage is that more content can be added without generating more actual HTML files. It's simply another record in the database.
I had to transfer WordPress on a Chinese (Tencent) server for client yesterday and boi oh boi the number errors I run into were just, .... Not only because of the GFW but also because the site was 45+ GBs. Nothing seemed to be connected on it I felt very limited but eventually I got it up and running after a week which otherwise would have taken 1 or 2 days.
I use Wordpress because I have no idea what else to use. I am too lazy to write my own website from the scratch and I don't even fully understand how it works. I love minimalistic websites that contain almost no bloat (not only visualy, but in general) and everything, but not sure how to achieve. I checked Hugo previously, but I simply don't understand it.
Yeah, but if you throw unoptimized pictures on your static site - how it's gonna load it faster?! On top of that your site probably has a crappy analytics beneath (if any), to shave off just half a second.
People talking about slow websites with WordPress probably has never built a website with Gutenberg with a theme like Astra, for example. The page speed test results are similar to that of a static website. As for WordPress security, yeah it's weak., not because it's the fault of WordPress, rather the plug-ins that rely on WordPress sucks. The plugin publishers don't patch up their bugs often enough. Those who complain about WordPress being slow need to build their website out with Gutenberg. Stay away from page builders like Elementor where their place in WordPress is fading away. Where WordPress truly shines is the plethora of plugins that is unmatched compared to a static website.
Wordpress definitely needs some skill to configure properly but it can be done my wordpress site loads in about 1-2 seconds and when cloudflare caches it that can go as low as 200ms
WordPress is so popular because it's fundamentally free and anyone (with word processor level skills) can use the admin backend to create content. For some simple brochure sites, I use a wget bash script to mirror static pages and use them as the main site and keep the real WP on my LAN. WP has its place. Try to add a simple contact mail form to a static site without involving 3rd party sites, let alone comments and ecommerce!
For me Wordpress is ok, BUT third party themes could be a nightmare because of a different PHP version compared with yours, the docs can be confusing, they depend on many plugins to function, etc... Personally I prefer to develop sites on Rails or Sinatra.
All right for static sites. But even brochure sites today need enough back end for customer reviews/testimonials. WordPress is plain stupidly slow. And so many faulty functionalities, never mind the security holes. All fixed framework back ends and CMSs have performance drawbacks. Need an adjustable and headless CMS and a tunable modular back end. Nice if Netlify went free on small business sites too - but they won't 😁
So you literally think the most used CMS in internet should die? Static sites are always secure and being the most used CMS always makes targeted by attacker. There is no way you can compare by saying that static site is better, faster, more secure than WordPress because there is nothing to compare. I have seen WordPress sites loaded within seconds, using CDN. And you make a laugh about some random site with no proper setup and you think it only happens with WordPress? Can static site run without proper setup? You are just biased and every bad thing you saying about WordPress does not even make sense.
Ikr ? He really fished for bad examples. I use WordPress and it is really convenient and fast to build with even for static sites. I have a WP static site with 17 images that loads in less than 400ms, just tested it now its 326ms from gtmrtrix London and 1.5s from Canada (VPS is in germany) I don't use a CDN for this site.
cttstore (his own Website) got 15-20 points on Google page speed insight. Most of them are casuals and believe every rumor, they don't even know how to optimize a Website and talking about Performance.
Another huge problem with wordpress is it makes it very difficult to mirror a website because of the PHP bullshit. A few of the "all rights reserved" crowd may think it's a feature, but this means the website and the potentially useful information it carries will be a mess to archive with missing assets. It really should be as easy as 'wget -m' to download a website. If you run a website to spread useful technical or other information, please don't use Wordpress, Blogspot and all that crap.
Wix is another one which had like more controls vs wordpress (free user) but for some reason the graphics/effects didn't work on the page. Overall for the common person who wants to set up online shop or whatever for their "Mary's flowers" shop and such, and have the idea that making a website is wizardy, they go for these solutions which in addition are sponsored by everyone and their mother, specially on YT. Count me in, I could learn but I don't know how to make a website either. I understand the very basic (basic +?) things about hardware, but you might as well kill me if you're going to ask me about code or networking. Networking to me is ancient language encrypted by the gods. Like you already said Hugo, and opening up terminal and then host, you lost most people. And I don't know the sub price for SS or WordPress but they surely are not as expensive as paying someone to set up a working website.
Hey Chris, it's clear that you don't have a deep understanding of website performance and the factors that can impact it. While it is true that WordPress has the potential to offer great performance, this can only be achieved if you use the right theme or page builder. In your case, it seems that your site has decent performance on desktop, but your mobile pagespeed scores are very poor. Mobile pagespeed is becoming increasingly important, as more and more users access the internet from their smartphones. Achieving good performance on mobile can be more challenging than on desktop, so it's important to prioritize it. It's funny that you would make fun of WordPress without understanding the full picture. A simple website like yours should be able to achieve good performance with the right setup and optimization. I would recommend doing more research and gaining more experience before making assumptions about WordPress or website performance in general.
Worked in the internet hosting slash web design world for 15 years. Wordpress and the template-type platforms have ruined Web Design and especially webhosting, IMHO. I get it why its used... I do. It makes dollars-sense. But it's terrible, and "devs" and "admins" who support it, should feel bad.
Good video, although I don’t agree with all your opinions in it. That said if your site is so great open source it. Show me the code. That said you’ll probably never see this and probably won’t respond.
Static sites are great if you have 100% control. If you are building stuff for clients, you are going to have a very tough time selling it to them. Especially as they are getting daily noise and half-baked opinions from everywhere.
Not completely True tho I see a lot of WordPress sites dominating niches and on top when it comes to SEO so I would have to disagree with you there . I do agree that they are slow and have a lot of problems if you don't know how to build them correctly. The static sites is great for speed and quick changes. But most clients these days want to be able to log into there website to do there thing .So for this reason I can't hate these management systems. They help us . And help people who don't know how to code websites build websites . Also it's cost effective.
if you have many static pages, and want to change site-wide text like title or categories, you have to regenerate all pages. with static site you do not have own comments.
it is possible to avoid the regenerating all pages if the site wide things are not stored in every page, but only loaded with javascript. other way, if site is like an app, and content is loaded with javascript. if page addresses with # it is hard to use # for navigation inside pages. page addresses maybe redirected to same static file on server.
@@paylnyles It sounds like you don't know what you're doing. Personally I would copy the photos from my camera onto my PC before copying them to the website. So I would have three of each photo. If I lost the camera and the website I'd still have them on my computer. Surely you should check both your camera and your computer to see if you still have them.
Ok so I have been struggling with this the last couple months. It seems like there are a lot of very intelligent people watching this channel so hopefully I can find some help or direction at least. So basically I am trying to start my own tech repair business in my area. Now business 101 is you basically have to have a website to be succesful in the long run. What I want from my wbesite is basically an about page, a section with photos of custom builds i've done, and a section that has my pricing and links to my social media and email. Extremely basic and simple. I have looked at all the prefab websites like square space and none of them have a template I even remotely like, and when I try to make something work I am just not happy with it. So my question to all you is what do you think the best and easiest to understand way to build my own website would be? I don't have time to mess around and learn coding and all that. Is there any basically drag and drop solutions out there? Or should I just deal with having a wensite I don't like through squarespace just for the sake of having one. Also on a side note if you've made it this far and have the technical know how to build a website like I described, perhaps we could work out a deal for compensation for doing so for me?
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As a senior Web Dev, while I totally agree on the principle, it's still hard nowadays to sell these static sites to clients. They usually see Wordpress or tell you they want it to manage their content. I sometimes also see clients that got shipped a static site, just the build, not the sources and say they can't do anything with these and when you tell them you can't do anything without the sources to rebuild they just feel scammed. The inbetween with WP as the CMS and the front with a react, go, or node seems the way to go. Nice video otherwise, nice to see popular youtuber promoting static sites generators !
Thanks Mathieu I consider myself a hobbyist when it comes to web development. I always like tinkering, but professionally I always wince when I have to setup a LAMP stack for a WP install lol.
I feel you. I had to pull out a WP + WooCommerce combo just 2 days ago for a few hours because it was getting ddosed. The cons of being the most popular CMS on the web. Feels like WP is the Windows of CMS while these new techs are the Linuxes of the web. Enthousiast drive the best, while trying to democratize them and end up maintaining the most popular products that are just convenient, not the best.
As a simple user of websites which use Wordpress or SquareSpace I run away screaming because I know even before visiting their website that it will be a bad user-experience with dynamically loading pages (not seeing everything at once, so having to scroll and wait, scroll and wait again) and an insane picture to text ratio. I am with Chris on the static websites, but just from a userperspective. I can work with html and css but I haven't made websites so I leave the technical judgement to people like Mathieu.
Ain't you heard of Strapi CMS ?
I was a website developer and obviously I wouldn’t give my clients a static website, especially without their consentement, cause like you said they can’t edit it.
But as for myself, I definitely prefer to use a static site generator, cause I want it to be fast and efficient and I don’t mind to make some markup and even go retouch the code of a theme.
Years ago I jumped on the wagon of Wordpress and its visual page builders.m, because it was like a revolution in the fast web development.
But now, I think it’s really over bloated and the PHP language is a total mess. I searched for a replacement for a longtime and now I think I found it. For the best.
Though, everybody should use what they are comfortable with.
I would never use WordPress for myself, but as a freelancer that is where the vast majority of my paycheck comes from. All of my highest paying jobs are WordPress sites.
All of those customers paying extra money because WP is such an arse but they believe it's the best thing ever.
I'm also a fan of static sites but I understand the "appeal" of the dynamic sites. Right now, I help a friend maintain two sites: one is static and one is in Wordpress. The Wordpress site is actually really fast, due to the theme we're using. The theme developers use some "tricks" with JavaScript to get the content loading really fast BUT some things are really a pain to change or control. With the static site, it's all on me which makes it much easier for me to change. Thanks for posting!
Fun fact: NGINX, Typescriptlang, and ReactJS sites are built with WordPress as a back-end solution. 😉
Anyway, speed is not the only thing you need to look into when building a site.
Also, according to W3Techs, WordPress is powering 43% of the internet. So, it's no surprise that it's the most exploited. The number can be higher since some sites only use WordPress for back-ends.
Underrated comment. My thoughts are same.
I used my AWS account and lightsail to get a wordpress site up in minutes because it was the fastest way to get content out to the world. Oftentimes, how FAST you can get an MVP is more important than how you put the MVP together. You can always iterate later, but I think CMS is a great way for many people to get the MVP they need and then extend it from there. As they need to scale they might want a different solution, but its often the best place to start. Theres a reason why Wordpress' market share is 43% of all websites.
Prefer just coding in html + css + php + javascript. I feel like a lot of freedom goes away once the cms comes in, but I understand why they are used.
Great video man! Rn I'm thinking about purchasing a website just for simple stuff and to create my own email addresses when I need to without the use Google, which I've used in the past for convenience. Thanks for another informative video! But if I purchase a domain I would be looking for security.
You can turn wordpress in headless / static site too. Of course any static html will run instantly compared to any PHP or JS dynamic site
Cache boys!
That’s not fair regarding WordPress, if you build a custom theme you can make it performant. You can also use WordPress as a headless CMS with a static site generator and get the best of both worlds.
People have done amazing things with Word Press just as they have with the Ford Model T.
Agreed, you totally can, its just only a few do. I mentioned the static site generator from Wordpress CMS at the end of the video.
These days, exposing and install wordpress with the 5 min install is just plain dangerous and not recommended. imo.
@@ChrisTitusTech very true. I have seen many maintaining WordPress than they have maintained their content.
also it is possible to use super cache addon to generate static cache
@Richard Dale I agree with Chris on this one. The problem is not so much with what can be done but with the fact that they offer a low threshold to people who know little about software and consequently you get bad websites. There is no blame here other than maybe bad defaults of WordPress. It is a bit like Python, Python can be incredibly useful for certain tasks but also it offers a low threshold for programming to people who lack foundational knowledge and consequently you get slow running software. It is not Python's fault but it is the consequence of that low threshold.
I am using a Thrive Themes for every WP needs. Basically lets you get rid of nearly all the other plugins. They focus on speed whether we talk website speed or speed of your work. My sites are all very fast on gtmetrix too but that also thanks to a cloudflare and image cdn. I understand what are you suggesting with this video and must agree. However I found my way around it and now I just make sites fast and they are static, too. I think its really about finding the style and the way. Once you understand what is actually WP downside and you eliminate it, the path is clearer. Then you find yourself rather making your own themes then buying them and you avoid those crappy frameworks, theme options, different scripts and junk. I believe once you find out how you gonna make it, you will stop messing around with tutorials, plugins, themes off the internet and learning all the frameworks. You just build it with the ones you know well - this is where I recommend Thrive Themes or similar. Something you can rely on and use for all purposes, without jumping around from theme to theme, plugin to plugin.
I went with one of the third options, NameCheap recently, but I’ve heard good things about WebFlow, which is less expensive than SquareSpace but more than NameCheap per month or year.
One of the principle reasons to use Wordpress are its plugins. It offers features and logic, i.e. extensibility. That's very compelling. If your content is static, a static page regenerator makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, the slower page load speed in Wordpress is a reasonable compromise to gain the ability to have it do so much other stuff.
tHat's actually pretty useful, especially for me a newbie in setting up a website properly... Gotta harden the security!
It's the award winning templates, isn't?
This video was sponsored by SquareSpace. If you need squares, we've got squares. Come and get your freaking squares. Your freaking squares are all your square needs all the freaking time. We've got little squares and big squares and even cubes. Have you ever seen a freaking cube? Ever seen Cube 2 supercube? Pretty good. Not as good as superman, but for what a movie is. SquareSpace. If you've got a space, we've got a square for you.
Funny, I'm looking at building my own site right now and this reminded me of Hugo. Thanks for that!
I've been slowly switching everything to Md documents, even manuscripts for scientific publications. I love the flexibility of publishing to HTML/PDF and publishing a site from a git push. I also run a squarespace site and doing repetitive things through the web GUI is so slow compared to code.
Our website is static generated using github and netlfiy. We also push media from AWS cloudfront CDN. Our cloudmetrix score is A: Performance
100%: Structure 97%: Largest Contentful Paint 311ms: Total Blocking Time 0ms: Cumulative Layout Shift 0.01 =) I had no idea before this video, but was pleasantly surprised. We offer the same deal for our customers who want simple brochure style websites...super cheap to host, super quick to deploy and secure. But yes the downside is they can't make their own changes - but we are upfront with them about that, and our hosting fee includes basic changes.
About a month ago, I hated Linux.......i couldnt be arsed putting the effort in to learn it...........and I used think you guys that go on about Operating Systems all the time are obsessed, couldnt understand it......but for the past week, things have changed.........I cant stop customizing it...........I cant stop learning new commands.........Im hooked........Im an addict.
Hello my name is R and Im addict. Linux would be perfect if only I made just this one more little tweak Im gonna be dreaming about Linux.
Obsession and thinking Linux in your dreams is the best way to learn.
@@wayland7150 Yeah, I think ya really do work things out in your sleep/dreams and get a better grasp of things and Linuix is something worth learning about :)
Next try FreeBSD too, to add to your OSs passion..
Typically love your videos, but this extremely one-sided. Professionally, WP is the right play 99% of the time. When it comes to actual marketing, gimmicks like Wix and Squarespace are garbage. If the dev knows what he’s doing, optimizing for site speed and security is a cake walk. And good luck even attempting to do SEO and schema on Wix/SS. All of our clients get WP, period. No negotiation.
I would love if you could do more Hugo tutorials. I have tried to use a few different hugo templates and failed. I know nothing about markdown, or any other coding language besides bash. I have managed to build a static site using Hugo, that I host on a raspberry pi, but it was very hard earned. A good tutorial series could be helpful.
impossible only half an hour ago i was in your website trying to figure out how did you build it , bcs i m trying to build one and i m a newbie . thank you for your work , a fan from Algeria.
Aka. The anti-sponsor video.
I loaded your website and its load time is glorious. Sincerely an appreciative web dev.
it looks so nice and clean Gotta show us how u did it
Awesome video Chris!
Thank you for this amazing concept of static sites. Personally, i started to test Simply Static Plugin for WordPress yesterday. This allows to convert my wordpress website to a static one with a click of a button.
I still have the familiarity of wordpress but now I have also the speed of static sites. I can install WordPress in a completely contained environment (on a local host or even vm) and then push the outcome alone to the public. I don't even have to use heavy and slow security plugins because there is really NOTHING TO HACK ANYMORE!!
At the same time my site decreased from over 400 mb all the way down to 1,5 mb which is just completely insane.
If you want to or just have to keep WordPress and it's familiar environment but at the same time you would like to remove most of its vulnerabilities, Simply Static is definitely a way to go!
The only issue I have now is how to generate my xml sitemap for sites kept on the local host but with my main domain inside the file. I'm still trying to figure that out.
I went the complete opposite direction and wrote my own web server. Would not recommend 😆
i have extensive experience with WordPress/squarespace/ wix since in my previous job that was all i did for client's and i hated it so much. not only was the drag and drop experience frustrating to work with, but basic features would force uou to buy a higher tier membership. WordPress was my favorite but the constant need for updates and security concerns not only with WordPress core but the actual hosting provider was a pain point. sometimes the basics its the best solution. my recomendation to you is to use yaml files, or json data to populate your content it will make it easier to edit instead of doing inline markup. just my thoughts
Those services work for people that don't have or don't want to learn what they have to. Some people also aren't that comfortable doing this stuff on their own. For them, paying for a service to help them do it is worth it.
For more technically inclined people, it may be easy to do it another way. I learned HTML and css coding in high school, so a lot of the prebuilt things are very limiting for me. But for people who just want a low maintenance site that has 24/7 customer support, these services do a great job.
Great video, thanks Chris!
Squarspace or wordpress is pretty much tool for anyone who want to have some sort of site/shop/whatever. The same person can make site, maintain it and update it content with minimal knowledge about anything "site related".
Solution you showed require knowledge and require working with code. For me it's comparing orange to tank.
Also, I don't think that load time matter that much from the user perspective. It's can have impact on general UX, but I can't call it "the most important".
If the visitor really wants to see the site they will wait. If they are just flipping through random websites they won't wait. The most important visitors will wait.
If the visitor really wants to see the site they will wait. If they are just flipping through random websites they won't wait. The most important visitors will wait.
Best of both worlds: i love the wordpress templates. But i generate static html out of it. Did that 10 years ago using a “spider” plugin in firefox or chrome.
When you how to optimize pictures or use jpegmini or similar you reduce load times. Cheapo and easy and ultra fast and mega secure.
WordPress is awful. I have a Wix site, its ok. My big site is a raw server. For ecommerce, use bigcommerce.
Pictureofhotdog is actually comparable to the size of your site, actually slightly larger and unpacks more. The second one is definitely slow just because of high hi-res images, which is expected with any service dynamic or not. Honestly i don't think dynamic really slows you down that much, and if it does you can always use some sort of caching. I think you're not that far off from just hosting your own python or go server which is gonna give you much more flexibility
Tinkering with your own website is always fun!
You can't build complicated websites by yourself at almost no cost without using software like wordpress.
Anything you recommend for simple blogging? The case is, I have a client who was happy with the static website I made with svelte, but now wants to add a blog-style section.
What about storing posts in Markdown in some database, and then if new post pops out, you are converting it (with random M to HTML converter) to HTML and updating main page
You could let him loose with the editor and say 'only edit this page'.
Go with a headless CMS (You can run WordPress as a headless CMS too though)
Ghost
This video was very confusing. You talked about how bad SP is and WP on loading. I get that. To me, you could be a little clearer on what a static site is. Faster load times. Layout shifts. I'm going back over 7:11 to see if I am missing something. Had to listen for the word "Podia" and then do a search. Found their wiki and I am going over it now, to get a better under understanding. I appreciate the technical aspects that you are covering, but I think a little more general coverage of the platform would have been appreciated.
HTML is a simple text based language that all websites use to size and position text and images on the page. If the pages are stored on the server as HTML text files then that's a static site. No processing, just throw them at the visitors web browser as-is.
A dynamic site such as Word Press uses a programming language such as PHP to formulate the HTML from data pulled from a database when ever the visitor clicks on the site. So before they see anything the server has to do a tonne of work building the web page from scratch, it does not even exist to begin with. Then it can throw the generated HTML at the visitor's browser. Not only that but the HTML is usually more complex and poorly optimised.
Dynamic web sites are therefore slower, a lot slower in the case of Word Press. The advantage is that more content can be added without generating more actual HTML files. It's simply another record in the database.
@monsieurtechnical Don't confuse the man. If he would make a very simple HTML page he might carry on and learn the whole thing.
I agree.... He doesn't even explain that point which was the most important point...
I had to transfer WordPress on a Chinese (Tencent) server for client yesterday and boi oh boi the number errors I run into were just, .... Not only because of the GFW but also because the site was 45+ GBs. Nothing seemed to be connected on it I felt very limited but eventually I got it up and running after a week which otherwise would have taken 1 or 2 days.
I use Wordpress because I have no idea what else to use. I am too lazy to write my own website from the scratch and I don't even fully understand how it works. I love minimalistic websites that contain almost no bloat (not only visualy, but in general) and everything, but not sure how to achieve. I checked Hugo previously, but I simply don't understand it.
Yeah, but if you throw unoptimized pictures on your static site - how it's gonna load it faster?! On top of that your site probably has a crappy analytics beneath (if any), to shave off just half a second.
This guy can be a full stack freelancer. 🧐👌
Figured this video was coming when I saw the comments on the community post about the new website lol.
People talking about slow websites with WordPress probably has never built a website with Gutenberg with a theme like Astra, for example. The page speed test results are similar to that of a static website. As for WordPress security, yeah it's weak., not because it's the fault of WordPress, rather the plug-ins that rely on WordPress sucks. The plugin publishers don't patch up their bugs often enough.
Those who complain about WordPress being slow need to build their website out with Gutenberg. Stay away from page builders like Elementor where their place in WordPress is fading away.
Where WordPress truly shines is the plethora of plugins that is unmatched compared to a static website.
No static sites are not the way to go. Just learn how to utilise WordPress properly.
Wordpress definitely needs some skill to configure properly but it can be done
my wordpress site loads in about 1-2 seconds and when cloudflare caches it that can go as low as 200ms
Thanks, i needed that
My biggest problem with WordPress is that every plugin requires a subscription now.
WordPress is so popular because it's fundamentally free and anyone (with word processor level skills) can use the admin backend to create content. For some simple brochure sites, I use a wget bash script to mirror static pages and use them as the main site and keep the real WP on my LAN. WP has its place. Try to add a simple contact mail form to a static site without involving 3rd party sites, let alone comments and ecommerce!
Cache: let me introduce myself lol
wordpress and especially its plugins are notorious for security bugs, stay far far away :P
How do you handle security, for a static site? I've not really seen anyone else talk about this side of things, which is a tad strange!
For me Wordpress is ok, BUT third party themes could be a nightmare because of a different PHP version compared with yours, the docs can be confusing, they depend on many plugins to function, etc... Personally I prefer to develop sites on Rails or Sinatra.
What are those graphics card boxes in the background?
All right for static sites.
But even brochure sites today need enough back end for customer reviews/testimonials.
WordPress is plain stupidly slow. And so many faulty functionalities, never mind the security holes.
All fixed framework back ends and CMSs have performance drawbacks.
Need an adjustable and headless CMS and a tunable modular back end. Nice if Netlify went free on small business sites too - but they won't 😁
So you literally think the most used CMS in internet should die? Static sites are always secure and being the most used CMS always makes targeted by attacker. There is no way you can compare by saying that static site is better, faster, more secure than WordPress because there is nothing to compare. I have seen WordPress sites loaded within seconds, using CDN. And you make a laugh about some random site with no proper setup and you think it only happens with WordPress? Can static site run without proper setup? You are just biased and every bad thing you saying about WordPress does not even make sense.
Ikr ? He really fished for bad examples.
I use WordPress and it is really convenient and fast to build with even for static sites. I have a WP static site with 17 images that loads in less than 400ms, just tested it now its 326ms from gtmrtrix London and 1.5s from Canada (VPS is in germany) I don't use a CDN for this site.
cttstore (his own Website) got 15-20 points on Google page speed insight. Most of them are casuals and believe every rumor, they don't even know how to optimize a Website and talking about Performance.
Hmm, wonder how you got to this conclusion :P. teehee :D
hey chris, what do you think about platforms like editorx and webflow.
Another huge problem with wordpress is it makes it very difficult to mirror a website because of the PHP bullshit. A few of the "all rights reserved" crowd may think it's a feature, but this means the website and the potentially useful information it carries will be a mess to archive with missing assets. It really should be as easy as 'wget -m' to download a website. If you run a website to spread useful technical or other information, please don't use Wordpress, Blogspot and all that crap.
Is WordPress good for ecommerce? Like multivendor?
@@serpantinthewild No. It was never intended for this.
the simplest solution/answer is usually the right solution/answer. :)
I agree with you on everything I hate WordPress and drupal.
add typo3 to the list :)
I've managed to happen across wp login pages so many times lol
Cannot find the video for setting up a static site. Can you please link it to me? Thank you!
Wix is another one which had like more controls vs wordpress (free user) but for some reason the graphics/effects didn't work on the page.
Overall for the common person who wants to set up online shop or whatever for their "Mary's flowers" shop and such, and have the idea that making a website is wizardy, they go for these solutions which in addition are sponsored by everyone and their mother, specially on YT.
Count me in, I could learn but I don't know how to make a website either. I understand the very basic (basic +?) things about hardware, but you might as well kill me if you're going to ask me about code or networking. Networking to me is ancient language encrypted by the gods.
Like you already said Hugo, and opening up terminal and then host, you lost most people. And I don't know the sub price for SS or WordPress but they surely are not as expensive as paying someone to set up a working website.
What if you need some interaction with user and add some server side php logic or somerhing else?
Hey Chris, it's clear that you don't have a deep understanding of website performance and the factors that can impact it. While it is true that WordPress has the potential to offer great performance, this can only be achieved if you use the right theme or page builder. In your case, it seems that your site has decent performance on desktop, but your mobile pagespeed scores are very poor. Mobile pagespeed is becoming increasingly important, as more and more users access the internet from their smartphones. Achieving good performance on mobile can be more challenging than on desktop, so it's important to prioritize it.
It's funny that you would make fun of WordPress without understanding the full picture. A simple website like yours should be able to achieve good performance with the right setup and optimization. I would recommend doing more research and gaining more experience before making assumptions about WordPress or website performance in general.
Good video.
Worked in the internet hosting slash web design world for 15 years. Wordpress and the template-type platforms have ruined Web Design and especially webhosting, IMHO. I get it why its used... I do. It makes dollars-sense. But it's terrible, and "devs" and "admins" who support it, should feel bad.
Hey, which distro is this?? Thanks!
Saw it on another video Fedora Linux 35
All i want is a website that will get ke clients ....bottom line does it do this or not?
Good video, although I don’t agree with all your opinions in it. That said if your site is so great open source it. Show me the code. That said you’ll probably never see this and probably won’t respond.
Will you review fyde OS?
How about WebFlow? 🤔
Static sites are great if you have 100% control. If you are building stuff for clients, you are going to have a very tough time selling it to them. Especially as they are getting daily noise and half-baked opinions from everywhere.
Which OS is in this Video?
Not completely True tho I see a lot of WordPress sites dominating niches and on top when it comes to SEO so I would have to disagree with you there . I do agree that they are slow and have a lot of problems if you don't know how to build them correctly. The static sites is great for speed and quick changes. But most clients these days want to be able to log into there website to do there thing .So for this reason I can't hate these management systems. They help us . And help people who don't know how to code websites build websites . Also it's cost effective.
if you have many static pages, and want to change site-wide text like title or categories, you have to regenerate all pages. with static site you do not have own comments.
it is possible to avoid the regenerating all pages if the site wide things are not stored in every page, but only loaded with javascript. other way, if site is like an app, and content is loaded with javascript. if page addresses with # it is hard to use # for navigation inside pages. page addresses maybe redirected to same static file on server.
Your Website got 50 Points on PageSpeed Insights and you're talking about performance LMAO
Your store site got 15-25 points, you have like no clue about Performance. If you can't even optimize your own Sites, don't talk about performance
BASED!
"WordPress is slow" Bruh it depends on how you work with WordPress 😂.
99u i can login if i want /admin works oops
Image Peter McKinnon sit down and code his website...yeah, not gonna happen
The Square Space sh1t lost 120 photographs I loaded up, lost without a trace or at least I cannot find them +.
Annoying but you still have them on your computer.
@@wayland7150 Square Space lost them no sign and I think I deleted my profile with them after than x.
@@paylnyles It sounds like you don't know what you're doing. Personally I would copy the photos from my camera onto my PC before copying them to the website. So I would have three of each photo. If I lost the camera and the website I'd still have them on my computer. Surely you should check both your camera and your computer to see if you still have them.
hi chris
lol do ?author=1 on a wordpress site if you have forgotten your username
Why is it that I can no longer find the comment I left this morning?
👍👍
just lol if youre not using geocities
First!
4:20 Thanks Obama
Word press sucks. I hear
Ok so I have been struggling with this the last couple months. It seems like there are a lot of very intelligent people watching this channel so hopefully I can find some help or direction at least. So basically I am trying to start my own tech repair business in my area. Now business 101 is you basically have to have a website to be succesful in the long run. What I want from my wbesite is basically an about page, a section with photos of custom builds i've done, and a section that has my pricing and links to my social media and email. Extremely basic and simple. I have looked at all the prefab websites like square space and none of them have a template I even remotely like, and when I try to make something work I am just not happy with it. So my question to all you is what do you think the best and easiest to understand way to build my own website would be? I don't have time to mess around and learn coding and all that. Is there any basically drag and drop solutions out there? Or should I just deal with having a wensite I don't like through squarespace just for the sake of having one. Also on a side note if you've made it this far and have the technical know how to build a website like I described, perhaps we could work out a deal for compensation for doing so for me?
Do you know anything about WordPress?