I decided to start blogging again. I wanted my blog to meet these requirements:

• static site that is easy to host
• easy to get started with
• can be integrated with a headless CMS

GatsbyJS met these requirements. It deploys a SPA (Single Page Application), which may be overkill, but it has the advantage of being a system that should be easier to draw CMS content from. Rendering from Javascript means frontend customization is easier. Additionally, I am familiar with React, so this will hopefully be a productive environment.

For now, I am just going to use markdown posts from the filesystem, but I will be looking at the CMS integration.

I am using the standard blog starter. I added Discus comments. There wasn’t much else needed after that beyond a few styling fixes.

Deploy to Netlify

I am deploying to Netlify, which is a service for static sites. I am not using Netlify CMS, etc, but just giving Netlify the staic build.

I am really happy with Netlify. Deployment is easy, with notifications when complete. They have a lot of conveniences that most sites can benefit from. For example, clicking a button to get a let’s encrypt SSL cert for the site.

CMS integration

Local filesystem markdown editing can be a poor way of blogging for two reasons.

• slow turn-around to seeing the post in the blog
• requiring running blog software just to write or edit some content

Gatsby solves the first issue with a hot-reload feature. Note that a switch to a CMS can re-introduce this issue (the Contentful source requires restarting the development server). Gatsby is not necessarily well designed for dynamic updates, but you can see someone eventually achieving this here.

One would use a headless CMS, which is built around APIs and separation of presentation. These both have free tiers that probably work for personal sites. I believe if one only statically builds the site, users of the site would not hit the API. However, if the SPA is shipped, it might actively use the APIs.

• GraphCMS
• Contentful and here

Written by Greg Weber who lives and works in Silicon Valley building useful things.