Is Gatsby The Future?
Published: 2024-01-26 07:53:12

Web developers are creating a plethora of frameworks that allow developers to build websites in our rapidly evolving web society. Despite the increase in the number of frameworks being developed, Gatsby is still a top pick. Gatsby is a contemporary website framework, a static site generator, based on React, Webpack, and GraphQL that fosters the production of static HTML files that are loaded onto a server.
This article will explain to a rookie what Gatsby is and whether it is the future of open-source frameworks.

##What is Gatsby?
Gatsby is an open-source framework based on React that enables developers to build fast, secure, and powerful websites using an innovative [Gatsby Data layer](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/graphql-data-layer/) that makes integrating different content, APIs, and services into one web experience exceptionally simple. 
Simply put Gatsby is a static site generator. Being a static site, it will produce static HTML files that are loaded up on a server unlike how other websites work- where you visit a website and it has to query a database or do some programming on the server to serve your web pages. Gatsby already has all that pre-configured ahead of time and just serves it up. It is important to know that static sites do not connote a non-interactive or non-dynamic site. We can load Javascript into the HTML files that Gatsby serves, make API calls and interactions, and build fast and secure websites even though they're static HTML files served without running programming server-side languages. 
As a generator, it is a tool that is run on the server or your local computer to generate content for you, this includes HTML, CSS, Javascript and images, basically everything we need for a website to run. 

Gatsby uses nodeJs. Nodes run in a development environment on your computer, however, the final site when you ship a Gatsby site live will not need nodejs on the server because it is a static site. In other words, as part of its tooling system, Gatsby uses node to help generate the files but the final part doesn't require node to run on the server side.

Gatsby uses GraphQL to obtain data from anywhere. GraphQL makes API calls simpler and more efficient. We can use markdown files, databases, common CSS, common CMS like [headless cms ](https://www.contentful.com/headless-cms/#:~:text=A%20headless%20CMS%20is%20a,any%20digital%20channel%20you%20choose.)and WordPress, and [CSV file ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values)to get our data into a Gatsby site. It is important to note that Gatsby isn't going to handle our data for us. However, it will get that data pulled into Gatsby and generate the site from the data. 

Gatsby uses React and CSS for templates and the latter, for styling. When Gatsby pulls in our data, React will be in charge of what the [template](https://reactjsexample.com/tag/templates/) should look like and the styling for CSS, eventually exporting the files into the Gatsby site. 

Gatsby is built with a [plugin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug-in_(computing)) architecture. Interacting with Javascript, CSS, and HTML might get a bit complicated because what we're serving up is a static site. It makes it a seamless process when we pull in complex code into plugins while being able to rely on huge ecosystems of other plugin authors to do some of the heavy-lifting. 

###How can you use Gatsby?
For you to be able to integrate different content, APIs, and services seamlessly into one web experience, you need a unified GraphQL data layer. Gatsby enables you to converge your front end.
You can:

- 
Source From: Gatsby can pull data from any data source and build pages using just one line of code

- 
Build with: You can write your app fast and future Proof with React.  

- 
Measure with: Easily drop in third-party analytics to measure important behavior.    

**Some of the practical step-to-step guides**
We’ll be discussing just 3 of these guides:

- 
Use Gatsby image

- 
Add a Plugin to your site

- 
Deploy (set up) using the [Gatsby cloud](https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/reference/cloud/). 

**Gatsby Image**
 Images and media play a huge role in making websites rich and interactive. It allows you to pull images, videos, GIFs, and other media into your site. Gatsby image optimizes page performance and user experience. 

**Guides**; 

- 
Assets from the filesystem

- 
 Gatsby image plugin

- 
 Static folder

**Plugins And Themes**
Gatsby offers a wide range of plug-in functionality, including CMS interfaces and image optimizations. Themes enable the reuse of pages and sections between multiple sites.

**Deploy Using Gatsby cloud**
Gatsby cloud is the Gatsby team's optimized platform for previewing, building, deploying, and hosting Gatsby sites. Gatsby Cloud interacts with the website-building applications you already use. When you make changes, Gatsby Cloud automatically builds and deploys your site by connecting to the GitHub repository for your Gatsby project. The Gatsby team created Gatsby Cloud to be the quickest way to create and host your website.
Some of its exceptional features include:
- 
Quick Connect; Using Quick Connect, your CMS's webhooks may be instantly configured.

- 
Preview; By offering a temporary URL that can be shared so that everyone can see changes right away and in context. Preview makes content production and collaboration easier.

- 
Automated Lighthouse performance checks and deploys previews to fix errors before they’re published.

- 
Free Tier; A Free tier created to accommodate tiny and private sites.


###Advantages of  Gatsby
Here are some of the benefits of using Gatsby:

- 
Scale: Gatsby helps deploy and host on Content Delivery Networks, delivering content to visitors faster than traditional servers.

- 
Security: Considering that Gatsby is a static generated site, it has fewer vulnerabilities than traditional websites and rigid platforms.

- 
Build Rich Web Experiences: Gatsby has a unified data layer that enables developers to easily combine data from different sources and render them alongside each other. Consistently add content to your website from sources like Shopify, WordPress, Stripe, and others.
 

- 
Unparalleled speed and responsiveness: Gatsby combines Static site generation, deferred static generation, and intelligent page rendering to selectively preload the content that matters. Provides the user with a blazing-fast website that feels incredibly fast and performant. Gatsby also enhances your Lighthouse score, SEO traffic, and conversations.

- 
Provide Developers With A Fun Experience: To offer an extraordinarily elegant developer experience, Gatsby is built on top of React and incorporates cutting-edge technologies like GraphQL, Webpack, and more. With Gatsby, you can spend more time building your app and less time maintaining and optimizing it.

You can speed up the development and delivery of websites and apps for your companies with the aid of a wonderful community and a vast ecosystem of plugins, themes, and starter kits.

###Limits of Gatsby
Gatsby has a lot of strengths however, there are some downsides. Therefore, there are some cases when Gatsby is not the best choice. Here are some of that;

- 
Long build time: Since it's a corporate-size webshop, and you have a lot of content, there will be a longer build time. However, the solution to this problem is using the Gatsby cloud but it is not free.

- 
Learning a new CMS: This is one of the most significant disadvantages for most companies moving from WordPress to Gatsby. Learning a new CMS is usually hard because it might be unfamiliar to the new user and learning new processes and technologies is one of the flexibility of an organization. 

- 
Updating content: If you need to keep updating or amending your content, using Gatsby might take up time because those updates won’t be instantly visible as in, for example, WordPress.

- 
Lack of plug-and-play functionality: Gatsby is a framework for creating websites and generating code that works with other platforms like content management systems, but it lacks a graphical user interface. 
Installing Gatsby and getting started is difficult for non-technical users. Before the website can be used, there must be a lot of planning, designing, and development. Now, a major firm might not have a problem with this, but a small business that is just starting might.

###Why use Gatsby?
In reference to the advantages stated earlier, these are the core reasons you should use Gatsby. As it provides better speed, security, and improved developer experience. 

- 
Speed: One of the benefits of using Gatsby is its speed and performance. Gatsby is going to be way  faster than most of its alternatives such as cached websites using Wordpress. 
 

- 
Security: Because of its static nature and just shipping HTML files, this will be innately secure since there won't be any database to hack nor user data to be stored on the server. Even if the site were susceptible to hacking, there wouldn't be as much damage as there would be if they had access to a WordPress site, user data or credit card information. 

- 
Improved developer experience: Having a modern development environment is one vantage of using Gatsby. The tooling is simple and robust, the Languages are modern and apt. Overall it's a nice environment to be working in, that extends into a community that is used by other developers as well. 

- 
Open-source, free and great documentation: Gatsby is an open-source project, that is people contribute to it to grow. It is also free, has good documentation, and a team of experienced paid people who are available to help the open-source project continue to flourish. With Gatsby, you don't have to worry about a technology that doesn't have long-term support. 

###Alternatives To Gatsby 
If you're considering using Gatsby to build your website, here are some excellent alternatives;
Jamstack Frameworks; such as Jekyll, Next.js, and Nuxt.js.
Traditional content management systems CMS; such as Word press and Drupal. 

###Conclusion
Gatsby is a static site generator that uses React, NodeJs, GraphQl and a fitting plugin architecture system under the hood to create a seamless and rich website for users. It has a stable and thriving community providing developers with an improved developer experience. However, it has its drawbacks, but this doesn't impede its benefits. It is still a top pick if you want your website to be fast and robust.