Track(s):
Dev / DevOps, General, PM / Business, Site Building
Audience:
All

Drupal is the swiss-army-knife of content management systems. It provides the flexibility to build pretty much any site you want. This is why so many of us choose Drupal for our backend technology.

Jamstack vs Static

You can find tons of resources on Drupal with React, Gatsby, Next, Vue and Nuxt, yet not so much static-focused non-Jamstack content beyond using the Drupal Tome module (which is a great tool!). Why are JavaScript frameworks such a hot Drupal topic yet simple static frontends not so much? I think static Drupal has a marketing problem!

Benefits of Static

Drupal provides the tools and workflows that content editors want. With Paragraphs and Layout Builder and Views, there is much to love. But for many sites, they would also reap the benefits of having a fully or mostly static frontend such as:

  • Enhanced security
  • Increased performance
  • Better scalability
  • Less CO2 emissions
  • Higher Lighthouse scores
  • Improved user engagement

It’s often more cost-effective too!

Best of Both Worlds

Although you can’t use static for everything, it’s not unusual to be able to leverage a static frontend for a good part of your website while routing dynamic pages back to the Drupal backend. This provides the best of both worlds:

1) Drupal with its flexibility and features, and

2) static with its speed, security, scalability, and better environmental footprint.

Let’s discuss how to leverage a fully or partially static frontend for your Drupal website for all the wins!