Jamstack has been taking the web development industry by storm in recent years, but what exactly is it? And why is it so popular? Let’s find out, and see how it could benefit you, too.
What is Jamstack?
Jamstack isn’t a new or specific technology, but rather a methodology – an innovative way of building apps and websites, delivering a host of benefits. The ‘Jam’ in Jamstack stands for JavaScript, API and Markup; the core components that are decoupled in this architecture.
Put simply, it’s a static website or application where the pages are already generated and stored in a cloud-based content delivery network (CDN) – rendered and ready to go. This means instant retrieval and lightning-fast load times.
Compare this to traditional dynamic sites with a content management system (CMS), requiring backend server involvement. Each time a request is made, the page is generated by the server on demand. This back and forth takes a lot of time. Suddenly seems rather inefficient, right?
So, how exactly does this help us, the website and application owners?
What Are the Benefits of Using Jamstack?
Whether you’re building a large e-commerce site, SaaS application or just a blog, the Jamstack approach serves up some significant advantages.
It’s no longer necessary to engage software giants such as Sitecore to create rich, responsive websites and apps. In fact, as you’ll see, things get better when you decouple from the database.
Increased Performance
As we touched on above, Jamstack makes things faster. Much faster.
Traditional websites with a CMS manage everything in the same system. Content is created, updated and managed from the backend, where developers also handle all of the code and design templates. When someone visits a page, a software layer retrieves the data and the server assembles everything to deliver the content. A single page gets generated each time the server receives a request. This slows things down, needlessly.
When sites are built with the Jamstack architecture the frontend is decoupled from the backend, meaning there’s no need for a database or server and the associated piecemeal data requests. Instead, the frontend can be deployed directly to a CDN and the prerendered pages are delivered at blistering byte speed.
2. Improved Security
Another benefit of decoupling the frontend from the backend – and therefore not relying on a server and database at all times – is that there are fewer opportunities for attack. By design, Jamstack architecture limits the chances of your site being compromised.
Additionally, less code being executed on each request means fewer runtime errors. Reduce the complexity, reduce the bugs. Simple and secure.
3. Affordable Scalability
If you’re not relying on heavy server and database processing, you can also avoid the associated limitations and costs when trying to serve more customers. With the Jamstack architecture, it’s easy to scale; all you need is a powerful CDN to serve files in more places, which is much cheaper and faster than upgrading servers.
The Jamstack methodology also circumvents the ongoing software subscriptions and licensing costs associated with the CMS giants, resulting in whopping savings of over 90%.
Should You Use Jamstack?
This all sounds pretty good, right? There’s just one catch: It’s pretty complicated, too.
At Batur, we’re positioned at the forefront of digital innovation to optimise the online experience for our clients. We build embedded, technical teams to implement cutting-edge architecture, such as Jamstack, to help organisations grow fast and securely.
If this sounds like something you’d like to do, get in touch and let’s build a better business together.
