Why are we talking about this?
Within the past few years, a concept known as JAMstack has taken over the web development community by storm. So what is it exactly?
What is a JAMstack?
JAMstack stands for Javascript, API, and Markdown. Basically it is a web development design/architecture standard for building web applications using these three things. When using this structural pattern, your server is headless. This can be accomplished by using a CMS (Content Management System) as your backend to store all of your data which is usually written in Markdown. A couple popular CMS’s you may have heard of are Wordpress and Drupal. This data is then accessed using API requests from your front-end code written in Javascript.
There is more going on here, and if you would like to learn more about JAMstack, checkout this page.
What is Gatsby?
Gatsby.js is an open source static site generating framework built on top of React. They pride themselves in building "blazing fast websites and apps"(taken straight from there homepage). In fact, this blog you are reading now is built with Gatsby!
The way Gatsby works is simple. You have your data source (usually in markdown files or a CMS but it can be anything), then you query your data using Graphql and display it in your application written in React. You then deploy your site to a static web host and voilà. It's as simple as that!
So where does Gatsby fit in?
Gatsby fits in to this whole JAMstack ecosystem by allowing you to build and deploy a simple, yet fast headless application right out of the box. They offer a wide variety of features with a rich plugin system. Gatsby gives you the ability to focus all of your efforts on writing code, as opposed to dealing with configurations and getting everything connected. Whether you are creating a blog, portfolio, or ecommerce store, utilizing the power of Gatsby with a headless architecture will have your site up and running in no time.
If you have any experience using React, then Gatsby will feel very familiar. If not, well luckily for you they have great documentation. Give it a try and let me know how you like it or if you have any questions. Also feel free to checkout my Gatsby Starter I created and published on there site! This will get you up and running with a personal blog very quickly!