Why Gatsby? A react static site generator
Gatsby is a game-changing framework for rapid software development with JavaScript. It combines the power of a React app with GraphQL for data fetching to build out blazing fast static websites.
Get the Why Gatsby crash course!What is Gatsby?
It is a React-based, GraphQL-powered, static site generator that feels like a modern open source front-end framework. It uses popular technologies including React, Webpack, GraphQL, ES6+, JavaScript, and CSS for a smooth development experience that can take your website from zero to deployed in just a few hours, with incredible performance and excellent security.
5 Reasons to Build With Gatsby
- It allows for an incredibly smooth web development experience--take your idea from zero to deployed react app with static pages in just a few hours!
- It boasts robust documentation despite being relatively new framework
- Gatsby.js has well-documented data source plugins make it a breeze to fetch data from APIs, databases, CMSs, local markdown files, and more
- It allows developers to generate pages with React source code while still getting server-side rendering and static HTML, improving search engine optimization and speed
- It includes built-in linting rules to help improve your website's accessibility, easy tooling for building progressive web apps, code splitting, lazy loading support and much more in the plugin directory.
Common Misconceptions About Gatsby
Will it be difficult to get started with this static site generator?Some frameworks and libraries can be difficult to start with, but it boasts excellent documentation with quick-start guides for developers at any level of experience to get your static site template up and running within just a few minutes, including React components, and detailed explanations for implementation of Gatsby's data sourcing plugins.
What if I don't have experience with React and/or GraphQL?It may seem that a lack of experience with React, GraphQL, or both, would be a barrier to entry. However, despite its relative newness, Gatsby has extremely robust documentation with examples with React and GraphQL, making it a great learning tool for both.
I already have a webpack config/static site generator that works for me!Gatsby.js allows developers to build products that combine the speed and performance of a static site with all of the benefits and flexibility of modern web front-end technologies, plus GraphQL to fetch data from a variety of sources for an exceptional developer and user experience.
GraphQL data collection sounds intimidating!The framework offers data source plugins that are well-documented, and in many cases require only a few lines of code to configure.
What Others Say About Gatsby
Here are some Gatsby Sites
Gatsby.js — A Game-Changer
While it is still a new technology, and it is constantly growing and improving. However, a few things are certain:
- The framework is simple to get started with—Templates, gatsby plugins, and excellent documentation make it fun to build with—for developers at any experience level, making it easy to build for web and mobile
- Data-fetching has never been easier— the well-documented data plugins make the process of fetching data at build time for your static pages on your website smooth and elegant
- It's the best of both worlds—the framework makes it easy to build websites and landing pages using modern technologies like React and GraphQL without sacrificing speed and performance offered by generated static HTML
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