Technologies
WordPress
WordPress is the world's leading Content Management System (CMS) and subsequently the world's leading website creator. It accounts for 40% of all websites on the internet. Initially made for blogging, WordPress has become more powerful. Important websites such as the White House is made with WordPress, which shows you how trusted this web development tool really is.
What makes WordPress the top leading website creator is its flexibility in creating websites and its ease of use for developers and non-technical users. You can create almost any type of websites with WordPress. It has a great community where developers can come together and assist one another. We chose WordPress as our CMS because it is well-established and gets the job done. We want our clients to be able to edit their posts, pages, and other contents without having to contact us. And because it is such a popular CMS, there are many affordable hosting services to choose from.
Gatsby.js
Gatsy.js is a frontend framework based on the React.js library. It is used to create blazingly fast and secure websites and applications. Essentially, it is a static site generator that utilizes React.
What makes Gatsby.js blazingly fast?
It loads only the critical HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, and other types of data that is used in a website. There are essentially no servers or databases to retrieve information from because those are rendered when the website is first loaded. Whenever you navigate to a different section of the website, let's say a different page, it has ZERO loading time. Making the experience of using your website fantastic.
What makes Gatsby.js secure?
There is no runtime when it comes to Gatsby.js applications. It adds a layer of protection against attackers and hackers that exploit the frontend and backend connection. It basically has no way to talk to the server unless it called once again by the developer. Additionally, each Gatsby.js application is held in a global CDN; which eliminates the risks of DDoS attacks.
WordPress + Gatsby.js
Adding two of our technologies gives us a new type of tech stack, one that has been on the rise among web developers and clientele alike: Headless CMS. Previously, we discussed how Gatsby.js is a frontend framework that is used to create blazingly fast and secure websites. And we discussed about how WordPress is the leading CMS system in the world. Combine these two together, and we create a WordPress website with the speed of Gatsby.js.
How does this work?
Gatsby.js uses GraphQL to retrieve data from a source; in this particular example, that source is WordPress. In a way, we are ignoring WordPress' own frontend framework and giving the data in the backend to a Gatsby.js application using several plugins made specifically for this type of tech stack. We still can use WordPress to edit and create posts, blogs, and pages, but instead of the traditional framework that is used to show the website, we use Gatsby.js to generate those pages.
There is, of course, limitation to this type of tech stack. One particular limitation is transition plugins into GraphQL. Some plugins do not support GraphQL, thus making it impossible to use with Gatsby.