• 04 Jan, 2026 *

One of the weirdest things I’ve encountered on my journey back to the indie web and web design is realizing that the field has surpassed your base knowledge, as I’ve contended with balancing and learning.

NOTE: This is a more technical post, but it is meant to document my process for novices, or those starting out with Static Site Generators (SSGs.) I hope my post elucidates and dispels certain things, and look forward to seeing you on the web!

Choosing Static vs. Dynamic

For those of you who are unaware, when we go on the internet–there are two different types of websites that we’ll encounter:

• Static: Pre-built and deployed files that use front-end, client-side languages (HTML, CSS and JS) that supposedly help them load faster and make the client experience faster and more streamlined.
• Dynamic: Means that on the front-end, the page itself is being built in real time as the client is navigating the website. These typically involve a database (like postgreSQL and mySQL) and this means every action adds a slight delay because the page has to respond to a client’s input.

When I first began designing and building websites, I went for the static approach because free99 (mostly) and I needed to learn the basic languages (HTML, CSS and JS) first. As you’ll find with many other websites, my inklings of this was viewing source, borrowing and remixing someone’s code. I don’t do that without permsision and noticing what the license is now, of course. And I certainly don’t monetize my work. So, this use case should be fine and there’s proper attributing.

However, I soon grew tired of the tedium and routine of having to edit all of my files whenever I need to update the navigation bar, or something else silly and routine. I also didn’t want to keep copying and pasting the same code.

The Dilemma

So, I had two options. Either learn how to use a Static Site Generator with includes and templating in different languages and figure out how it can spit out the code (and work with a template that already existed, as opposed to creating an entirely new layout/theme.

OR

I could do it the old fashioned way. (And it’s old fashioned because I’m accustomed to it and existed on the internet) The way that I used to do this is through PHP and includes. I’ve heard you can probably do some of this with JS now, but I was so used to using PHP to assemble everything that when my spouse tried to explain the difference between static vs. dynamic... I got so frustrated and confused.

So, until I did more research and understand what I was getting myself into, I stuck with a static page coded through straight HTML, CSS and light js.

Making the Choice

It wasn’t until I encountered Melon’s Gallery Maker that I realized the power of SSGs. Technically, Melon’s gallery maker is a static site generator. It converts pictures into a static photo gallery–I used it as an alternative to Instagram. The result was fantastic, and the documentation was detailed enough. Watching by executing and deploying the program gave me a better understanding of what SSGs do, and I felt fully confident after playing around with Melon’s work, that I could either use a headless CMS. Anyway, after some finagling, I managed to get 11ty working on my website. I tried Astro, but the build bothered me slightly. There are a lot of run errors in my terminal and I just didnt’ want to deal with it.

Either way, 11ty now powers my main website. We’ll see how it turns out, but I finally get why people choose them :’)

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