On Static Sites

For years I ran this site on a database-backed CMS. It worked, mostly. It also went down when I least expected it, needed security patches I never applied in time, and turned “write a paragraph” into “log in, wait for the editor to load, fight the WYSIWYG.”

So I deleted it.

The whole site is a folder

Now the site is a folder. Posts are Markdown files. The build step turns that folder into static HTML, and a CDN serves it. There is no server to patch, no database to back up, no admin login to forget.

When I want to write, I open a file. When I want to publish, I commit it. That is the entire workflow, and it is hard to overstate how much friction that removes.

What you give up

You give up dynamic features that genuinely need a server — comments, search that scales, anything personalized. For a personal site, I want approximately none of those things. The few I do want have static-friendly answers.

The best CMS is the one that gets out of the way between having a thought and publishing it.

What you get back

Speed, mostly. The site is a pile of pre-rendered files on a CDN, so it loads instantly from anywhere. But the real win is durability: a folder of Markdown will still open in ten years. I cannot say the same for the CMS I just deleted.