What are static site generators and why Astro is the best framework for developing landing pages
Hi all! Recently I solved the problem of developing a landing site for my own project. The landing page had to have an admin panel, that is, the data for its content had to be stored and edited on the server. Therefore, I was looking for a modern and powerful tool for generating pages based on data from the admin panel API.
This is how I got acquainted with the SSG approach (Static Site Generation – Generating static sites), I tried it in action, and I want to talk about what it is, why you might need an SSG framework and why Astro is the best choice for generating static sites right now.
What is SSG?
SSG or generation of static sites is an approach to designing HTML pages that are created once when the site is built. To mark up such pages, reusable templates are used, the functionality of which is expanded compared to regular HTML – they can use variables, conditional constructs, loops and other logic.
Generating static sites on the server is necessary if the data on the site pages depends on external sources and is not built into the original markup. The data is requested once at the site assembly stage, after which ready-made pages with the generated content become available to the user.
Here are a few benefits that this approach can provide:
Performance. Since page content is pre-generated on the server during the build stage, static sites have excellent performance. Unlike the SSR approach (Server Side Rendering – Server side rendering), when content is generated for every request to the server, statically generated sites do not load the server and load faster.
Safety. While the server is involved only in the assembly and hosting of sites, and is not dynamically requested, it is less susceptible to various threats and attacks.
Simplicity of hosting. Static sites are much easier to deploy on different hosting platforms, since they do not require setting up complex infrastructure.
SEO optimization. Static content is easier to index by search engines, and faster page loading contributes to higher trust of the resource on the part of search engines.
Why do we need SSG frameworks?
Generating static sites is a complex task, and SSG frameworks are recognized to simplify and automate it. Here are the main features that SSG frameworks provide:
Ease of development. Static site generation frameworks provide many tools for organizing and managing content, templates, styles, and scripts.
Automation. Frameworks provide tools for automating routine tasks, such as project assembly, optimization of images, fonts and other resources, code minification, deployment to hosting sites, etc.
External integrations. It is often necessary to use not only the tools built into the framework, but also some external ones: UI libraries, CSS frameworks, additional template engines, etc. The framework takes on the task of providing integration with similar tools.
Support for external data sources. Frameworks provide mechanisms for integration with various data sources, such as external APIs, remote and local data files, etc.
Use of modern programming languages. To create dynamic logic, SSG frameworks allow you to use modern programming languages such as TypeScript.
Multilingual support. Some frameworks provide tools for creating multilingual sites, supporting different content options for different languages.
Why Astro is the best choice on the market?
He’s very fast. Astro much faster than competitorssuch as Next.js, Remix and Nuxt due to the maximum reduction in the size of the JS code.
He doesn’t care what you write in. If frameworks such as Next.js, Remix, Qwik, Nuxt, VitePress and SvelteKit are strictly tied to working only with a specific UI library (React, Vue.js, Svelte), then in Astro you can use any of the listed technologies and more at the same time. Thanks to island architectureit is possible to use components written using any library, and even build interaction between them and use shared state.
It is modern and easy to use. Under the hood of Astro there is a powerful Vite builder, there is support for TypeScript, and a large collection of plugins and integrations allows you to efficiently solve almost any problem.
It provides a powerful template language. Astro has its own template language that is very similar to regular HTML. It supports such features as: JSX syntax, passing props to Astro components, limiting the scope of CSS, using CSS preprocessors, connecting client scripts and setting their hydration mode.
It uses file-based routing. Astro automatically generates routes based on files in a folder src/pagesand also supports dynamic routes, redirects and automatic pagination for large data collections.
It supports multi-languages. Multilingualism in Astro is based on routing, and separate routes for each language are automatically generated using the file structure in the folder src/pages.
Astro can work as an SSR engine. Astro has built-in capabilities for integration with SSR adapters, which allow you to add on-demand HTML markup generation only for certain pages. This allows for more complex dynamic logic in which the presentation of pages changes based on user actions on the server through API requests.
I recommend trying Astro in action, especially since its official documentation has been translated into many languages, including Russian: https://docs.astro.build/ru/getting-started/.
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