Jamstack has transformed how developers built for the web and ushered in a new era of fast-loading and secure websites that meet visitor expectations.
Since its inception, the Jamstack ecosystem has grown exponentially, and companies of all sizes have used it to help build modern web applications.
In this article, we’ll explain how enterprises can maximize the benefits of Jamstack by combining it with a CMS.
#What is Jamstack?
Jamstack refers to a web development architecture used for building modern applications. The combination of JavaScript frameworks for handling dynamic functionality, APIs that handle server-side operations and link third-party services, and pre-built Markup used to serve websites as static HTML files help create fast, scalable and secure websites.
#CMS solutions for Jamstack
As Jamstack has a list of CMS vendors on its official site, it comes as no surprise Jamstack is best suited for headless CMSs. Based on the filter, we know that most of those headless CMSs use API-driven, Git-based, or Git+API technologies.
Jamstack works best with headless CMS because the Jamstack principle itself decouples the web experience layer from data and business logic, enabling developers to take a composable approach where third-party services and custom logic are consumed via APIs. This way, Jamstack removes the requirement that business logic dictates the web experience.
A headless CMS allows Jamstack developers to choose their own frontend tools and frameworks when creating digital experiences. They can use their preferred combination of JavaScript frameworks and static site generators without restrictions.
The reasons for the emergence of Jamstack stem from the performance issues that occur with traditional websites and monolithic applications.
Traditional websites have to run on a web server at all times; otherwise, they cannot function. In order to power these websites, data gets sent from a database such as MySQL to a CMS like WordPress. The CMS then sends the data to a web server such as Apache, which delivers the website to the end user.
Scalability and security challenges
Using this legacy approach can be complex as it makes pages load slower, leads to more opportunities for malicious actors to attack websites and limits the website’s scalability and the ability to cope with increases in traffic.
Higher costs and poor experience
Since monolithic apps produce pages at runtime on the server, it can result in page load delays and cold starts. These delays result in higher costs as well as poor developer and user experience.
#Reasons for using a headless CMS with Jamstack
Jamstack offers faster websites and more secure infrastructure. However, in combination with a headless CMS, there are a number of other benefits that businesses can take advantage of, including:
Unified developer experience
A Jamstack CMS unifies the developer experience by enabling a unified frontend. Through frontend unification, developers can consolidate their technologies, languages and frameworks. This enables better developer workflows and allows them to launch new applications or ship changes faster and improve productivity.
Better performance
A headless CMS is a high performer as it can offer a CDN to store content and assets at the edge so that websites can load quickly and securely. Not only does this increase website speed, but it also improves scalability to ensure peak performance at all times.
Friendly user interface
One of the notable advantages of utilizing a headless CMS in conjunction with the Jamstack architecture is the user-friendly interface it provides for content editors. In the absence of a headless CMS, editors would typically have to work with Markdown files, which can be less than user-friendly due to its technical nature. With a headless CMS, content editing becomes more intuitive and accessible, allowing editors to focus on creating and managing content efficiently without the need for specialized technical knowledge. This streamlined workflow is a key benefit that enhances the content management process within a Jamstack setup.
#Why you should choose Hygraph as your Jamstack CMS
Hygraph offers a reliable content infrastructure for Jamstack applications. Content is stored in the CMS and connected to the rest of the frontend applications via API. Hygraph also provides SEO features for easy management and optimization.
Features like these make Hygraph an excellent option for Jamstack projects and developers who want to build performant static sites quickly. Content editors can have complete independence from development teams as they create engaging content, while developers can maintain their focus on enhancing the user experience without compromising site performance.
Alternative business lender Quickbridge needed to upgrade its tech stack to meet growing customer expectations. The previous website suffered from long page load times, high bounce rates and poor SEO performance. They opted for Hygraph so the development team could quickly build a new website. Hygraph’s intuitive content modeling and UI were some of the reasons they chose the headless CMS.
Their Jamstack setup included a static website built using static site generator Gatsby, Hygraph to manage the content and backend, a Cloudfront CDN, and AWS Amplify to host the website. Since adopting this approach, they have seen drastic improvements in their Google Page Insights score and faster development and deployment times.
Updating our technology stack with Hygraph allowed us to drastically improve our page load times and improve our SEO, making us significantly more competitive on mobile devices.
Jonathan Romanowski
Senior Staff Software Engineer, Quickbridge
#Ready for blazing-fast speeds with Jamstack?
A headless CMS like Hygraph can boost website performance while ensuring increased scalability and reliability, not to mention the improved developer experience. Hygraph can provide the ideal choice for your Jamstack and help launch blazing-fast websites.
#Frequently asked questions
Can I use WordPress with Jamstack?
Given that Jamstack requires a headless CMS, companies might be tempted to use WordPress as a way to make both developers and content editors used to its interface happy. However, this solution might fall short for the following reasons:.
Performance: The combination of WordPress plugins and REST API queries can lead to extremely slow loading times.
Editorial Experience: Even though WordPress offers headless functionality, the content editing experience outside of blogs and websites doesn’t compare to the user-friendliness of a true headless CMS.
Extensibility: Unlike a headless CMS like Hygraph, which integrates with the other tools in the tech stack using a modular approach and APIs, WordPress relies heavily on plugins, limiting the ability to extend the platform to meet modern requirements.
Content Modeling: WordPress comes with a predefined content model that fits a blog and while it can be extended, those extensions are not native to WordPress
-Not API-First: WordPress is not API-First and as such requires aditional work to be done in order to make it work.