When building a website that performs to a high standard, the tools you choose make a difference. At Piece of Pixel, we’ve moved away from traditional platforms like WordPress to leverage the full power of modern web development, favouring the JAMstack architectural pattern. While WordPress has been one of the leading tools in web development for over a decade, the demand for faster, better-performing websites has called for a modern solution, and this is where JAMstack stands out.

In the following post, we will explain the fundamentals of JAMstack, how it compares to WordPress, and why we’ve chosen to build our projects using this approach to boost the potential of our client’s websites.

What is JAMstack

JAMstack stands for JavaScript, APIs and Markup. It’s a modern web development architecture that helps developers build fast, secure and scalable websites. It provides a decoupled architecture, keeping your frontend, the user-facing side of your website, separate from the backend, where all your content is kept, such as this blog post. Instead of using server-side rendering like traditional websites built with WordPress, JAMstack uses static site generation to serve pre-rendered content through Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), ensuring fast page load speed and reliability. Your content is managed through a headless CMS, when you update content through your CMS, the entire site is rebuilt and pre-rendered, ready to be served instantly to your users, leading to exceptional performance. Everything else on your website from forms to payments, is handled through APIs, creating a streamlined site that delivers a great user experience.

The popularity of WordPress

To give credit where due, WordPress is one of the most popular ways to develop a website and currently powers over 40% of the web. It’s free, easy to get started, and is backed by an ecosystem of hundreds of plugins and themes. For many small businesses, bloggers and users with minimal technical knowledge, WordPress is often the first choice. With all that said, WordPress may not be ideal for your business needs. WordPress was first built before mobile-first design, single-page apps and dynamic websites became an industry standard. These limitations can hold back developers who strive for speed, security and flexibility.

JAMstack vs WordPress - Key Differences

• Structure - JAMstack uses a decoupled architecture, which separates the frontend from the backend, communicating through the use of APIs. WordPress is a monolithic architecture, all parts of the site are tightly integrated into a single system.
• Rendering - JAMstack websites are built using static site generation, all your web pages are built and stored on a CDN to be served instantly to users. WordPress uses dynamic server-side rendering, building your pages as the site loads, resulting in slower performance.
• Maintenance - JAMstack sites require minimal maintenance, with fewer plugins and pre-rendered web pages, there are fewer overheads to worry about. WordPress sites require ongoing maintenance, from plugin and theme updates to server and database configuration which can become costly.
• Developer Experience - JAMstack allows developers to use modern JavaScript tooling and frameworks such as React or Vue. It offers complete control over structure and freedom to build custom functionality. WordPress has many plugins available to help developers add functionality quickly, but this can lead to poor performance and requires frequent updating. WordPress is more suited to users with minimum technical knowledge.

When to Choose JAMstack

• Security is a concern - With no server-side processing or exposed databases, JAMstack sites are secure
• Great user experience - If you’re looking for a website with a great user experience, JAMstacks performance through the use of serving static files over dynamic server-side rendering wins out.
• Portability - Due to only needing to serve static files, JAMstack websites can be hosted in a variety of places, making it easy to move web hosts if needed.

When to Choose WordPress

• You need a website fast - With its large ecosystem of plugins and pre-built themes, WordPress websites can be set up and online fast.
• Simple blogging site - If all you need is a simple website for you to create blog posts, WordPress is a good choice, this is what WordPress was originally built for.

Why We Choose JAMstack over WordPress

Below are just a few reasons why we leverage JAMstack architecture to build high-performance websites for businesses, instead of using the traditional approach of WordPress.

Website Performance

In today’s world, you have a few seconds to capture your user’s attention, which is why the speed of your site matters. Not only will a slow website hurt the user experience, but also harm your search engine ranking thanks to Google’s Core Web Vitals. JAMstack sites are pre-rendered and served globally through the use of CDNs leading to blazingly fast load times. WordPress generates its pages on the server when you visit the site, resulting in slow page load speeds, especially if minimal caching or optimisation has been put in place.

Secure Websites

Security is an integral part of web development, and JAMstack reduces the potential for vulnerabilities on your website. There is no server-side processing or databases to be exposed with JAMstack sites, leaving hackers fewer entry points to target. WordPress relies on its large ecosystem of plugins and themes to keep up with modern-day development, most of which need frequent updating or are poorly maintained, making it an easy target for exploits.

Ability to Scale

Whether you’re a small business with only a handful of visitors, or an established company serving thousands of users, your website should always perform at its best. JAMstack sites scale effortlessly, and static site generation enables your content to be instantly served through CDNs, ensuring sudden spikes in traffic don’t cause any interruptions. To handle a large amount of traffic efficiently and reliably, WordPress sites need to take extra steps to cope. Caching layers and server upgrades are just some of the required updates needed, which can lead to a costly bill for your business.

Developer Experience & Flexibility

Our passion is building high-performance, conversion-driven websites, and JAMstack allows us the freedom to achieve this. Using JAMstack we can leverage modern frameworks such as Astro, React or Vue to build out fully custom functionality and customise every pixel of your site. We are not held back by the limitations WordPress imposes with its plugins and themes, which can oftentimes lead to forced workarounds to achieve the same goals.

Conclusion

We’re focused on giving our clients the best website possible, this is why we choose JAMstack to build our websites. With better performance, security, scalability and developer experience, JAMstack helps us deliver sites with an unrivalled user experience, that grow with our client’s business.

If you’re looking for a new website, or want to refresh your old tired website, talk to our team at Piece of Pixel based in Stoke on Trent, to see how we can bring your website into the future.