Thoughts on the JAMstack?

[jarod_peachey]

So if you've noticed, lately something called the JAMstack has been getting a lot of attention. It's growing with the use of Gatsby, Netlify, GhostCMS and others. It uses Javascript, APIs and Markdown to create static sites that are faster, more secure and better in almost every way possible.

I'm an early adopter of this, although I think it could use some work yet. For example, there could be easier ways to add comments to a JAMstack site at the moment.

I wanted to ask what your thoughts are on this new method of creating websites.

 

[27leaves]

Yes! I'm just on the hype and mainly because it is the fault of webwide 😅

 

[Gummibeer]

I've created my own one (not JS, Not JAMstack) but in a lot of ways very similar.

Beta Testing - Stancy

Hey, today I've released the first v0.1.0 release of Stancy. It's still in development and needs documentation, some more integration/real life tests. But my idea for this package should be clear now and everyone is welcome to test it. 🙂 I haven't composed a marketing description. But...

webwide.io

Why have I done it?
I'm not a JS guy, so this was the first contra. They "all" introduced their own template engine. A lot of my projects have some forms with extended logic. And I hated the limitation that the JAMstack is the "master" app/framework.

So Stancy is only a package, providing the very core and being extendable/customizable in all ways. And it can run without being static or use webserver to serve static files where possible and otherwise fall back to Laravel dynamic routing.

 

[joshmanders]

Big fan of Gatsby. JAMStack is dope, but takes a level of complexity that is mostly unnecessary for most folks. Also useless for a lot of use cases.

 

[jarod_peachey]

Big fan of Gatsby. JAMStack is dope, but takes a level of complexity that is mostly unnecessary for most folks. Also useless for a lot of use cases.

Gatsby is definitely awesome!

What are some use cases that JAMstack isn't great for? I'm trying to learn everything I can about it, so it'd be helpful to get you opinion on it.

 

[Gummibeer]

Gatsby is definitely awesome!

What are some use cases that JAMstack isn't great for? I'm trying to learn everything I can about it, so it'd be helpful to get you opinion on it.

I think that it's overpowered and engineered for what it's most commonly advertised.
A simple static page and/or blog. There are simpler tools to put markdown with YAML frontmatter into a template.
JAMstack plays nice if you have multiple content sources, APIs, foreign systems you want to create a static page from. So like a landing page for an E-Commerce company. Which displays static content, product data from shop API and content from company CMS.

So what was most times, in past, done by tailored solutions is very easy, secure and fast with JAMstack.
In the past you had to manage caching, rate limits, combining data streams and so on. Most times with queues, Cron jobs and runtime.
Now you only have to deploy the page every X minutes/hours and are done. Can run tests on it before deployment so you will never deploy/display an error message/screen if any API wasn't reachable or the data structure changed or any dev pushed some ****.

PS: prevent exactly this 😅

 

[joshmanders]

Gatsby is definitely awesome!

What are some use cases that JAMstack isn't great for? I'm trying to learn everything I can about it, so it'd be helpful to get you opinion on it.

In addition to what @Gummibeer said, what it's being used for but not so great is truly dynamic content. I don't think it's a good idea to have your content stored somewhere else and every time that content is updated, trigger a rebuild. People are using it for some weird cases.

Just use traditional dynamic website building.

 

[jarod_peachey]

In addition to what @Gummibeer said, what it's being used for but not so great is truly dynamic content. I don't think it's a good idea to have your content stored somewhere else and every time that content is updated, trigger a rebuild. People are using it for some weird cases.

Just use traditional dynamic website building.

Yeah, I definitely think for large apps, JAMstack is kind of pointless for now. Dynamic would be a ton better. However, for medium applications, the JAMstack is way more secure, it's faster, and it's more developer-friendly.

I think it all comes down to preference.