Wordpress vs Static Site Generators
TL;DR
Wordpress Behind the Scenes
Hugo Behind the Scenes
Reasons why the new website should be deployed as a Static Site Generator instead of a WordPress iteration.
Feels weird to write up about the benefits of static site generators vs a fully fledged wordpress build. Nevertheless, there seems to be an apparent need for this discussion to happen in order to highlight the benefits of deploying an SSG.
(Please bear in mind that whenver I use the term SSG I’m actually referring to a Hugo - a Go framework for deploying websites which is extremely fast, secure, versatile, customizable and that runs without the need for any additional databases, dependencies and/or, extra php code.)
- Hugo’s main use-case is for people who’d rather write text within a Text Editor(NeoVim, Nano, VSCode, NotePad, Word, Apple Notes (literally anything other than writing directly on a browser)
→ Basically what this mean is: Contributors can write content(which should be the focus of any website trying to aggregate as much traffic and drive as much awareness as possible) offline within their favorite text editors and subsequently publish it whenver they have internet access.
The following is a snippet from stackshare which highlights the differences btw Hugo & Wordpress.
Hugo vs WordPress: What are the differences?
Hugo: A Fast and Flexible Static Site Generator built with love by spf13 in GoLang. Hugo is a static site generator written in Go. It is optimized for speed, easy use and configurability. Hugo takes a directory with content and templates and renders them into a full html website. Hugo makes use of markdown files with front matter for meta data; WordPress: A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. The core software is built by hundreds of community volunteers, and when you’re ready for more there are thousands of plugins and themes available to transform your site into almost anything you can imagine. Over 60 million people have chosen WordPress to power the place on the web they call “home” — we’d love you to join the family.
- Hugo belongs to “Static Site Generators” category of the tech stack, while WordPress can be primarily classified under “Self-Hosted Blogging / CMS”.
→ Some of the features offered by Hugo are:
- Run Anywhere - Hugo is quite possibly the easiest to install software you’ve ever used, simply download and run. Hugo doesn’t depend on administrative privileges, databases, runtimes, interpreters or external libraries. Sites built with Hugo can be deployed on S3, Github Pages, Dropbox or any web host.
- Fast & Powerful - Hugo is written for speed and performance. Great care has been taken to ensure that Hugo build time is as short as possible. We’re talking milliseconds to build your entire site for most setups.
- Flexible - Hugo is designed to work how you do. Organize your content however you want with any URL structure. Declare your own content types. Define your own meta data in YAML, TOML or JSON.
On the other hand, WordPress provides the following key features:
- Flexibility | An ever-expanding plethora of plugins which only create extra load on the webiste
- Publishing Tool | WYSIWYG Editor + More Plugins which expand the attack surface
- User Management | Database Management
“Lightning fast” is the primary reason why developers consider Hugo over the competitors, whereas “Customizable” was stated as the key factor in picking WordPress.