JAMstack JAMuary Series - Week 2 Recap - Static vs. Dynamic and More
Tags: jamstack, jamuary, netlify
Published: 2020-01-22 21:46:51

---
title: JAMstack JAMuary Series - Week 2 Recap - Static vs. Dynamic and More
description: Check out Netlify's JAMuary Series - Recap of Week 2, 2020. Answering the what's, why's, and how's of static sites + JAMstack, WordPress as a headless CMS, and much more.
tags: JAMstack, JAMuary, netlify
published: true
canonical_url: https://www.netlify.com/blog/2020/01/22/lets-keep-talking-about-jamstack-this-jamuary/
---
In case you haven’t heard yet, we’re [talking about JAMstack this JAMuary](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2020/01/13/talking-about-jamstack-this-jamuary/). During the second week of the new year, [Divya Sasidharan](https://www.netlify.com/authors/divya-sasidharan/) and [Phil Hawksworth](https://www.netlify.com/authors/phil-hawksworth/) put together a recap of the posts that Netlify’s Developer Relations Team has been busy [publishing here on dev.to](https://dev.to/t/jamuary).

Picking up where the [part one recap post](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2020/01/13/talking-about-jamstack-this-jamuary/) in this series left off, let’s explore more of the latest and greatest JAMstack articles in this ongoing series, below!

## JAMuary digest – more JAMstack posts

**[January 8th - Is the JAMstack eco-friendly?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/is-the-jamstack-eco-friendly-25ld)** As serverless still uses servers, it’s known that the tech industry utilizes very real resources that directly contribute to carbon emissions - “*data centers now account for 1.5% of all electricity consumption in the US alone*”. In this post, Divya explores how efficiency and advancements in edge and cloud computing (and the JAMstack) clearly make it the more environmentally-friendly approach to take.

**[January 9th - Can a JAMstack site be dynamic?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/can-a-jamstack-site-be-dynamic-4d8)** If static sites are just flat files served up in user’s browser of choice, can the JAMstack approach and static sites be dynamic? In this post, Divya dives into adding more dynamic-ness to static sites with serverless functions.

**[January 10th - Is SSR compatible with the JAMstack?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/is-ssr-compatible-with-the-jamstack-5959)** As the title clearly suggests, this post explores differences between static sites server-side rendering approaches. “..._a server side rendered website is built for every request made_...” and the JAMstack has a “..._focus on pre-rendering ahead of time_...”.

**[January 11th - Is JAMstack antithetical to Wordpress?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/is-jamstack-antithetical-to-wordpress-2a55)** WordPress is still a force to be reckoned with on the web. Places like W3Techs and Wappalyzer cite WordPress as being used by sweeping majorities of all websites online today. This post explores the dynamic versus static site approach, alongside utilizing the obviously beloved (or at least widely familiar) WordPress CMS in a headless fashion atop the JAMstack.

**[January 12th -  Can content authors be happy on the JAMstack?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/can-content-authors-be-happy-on-the-jamstack-38mb)** Not every content marketer is familiar with version control and pushing their blog posts via command line. So how does JAMstack work for them? This post looks at how developers can create websites that [utilize CMSes in a headless fashion](https://headlesscms.org/) to empower every teammate, while still gaining the benefits of the JAMstack.

>Features like open authoring in [Netlify CMS](https://www.netlifycms.org/) moreover, offer a seamless way to support guest content contributors so content can be easily submitted without the overhead of setting up new user accounts

**[January 13th - Does JAMstack mean having to pre-render all the things?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/does-jamstack-mean-having-to-pre-render-all-the-things-4381)** In this post, Divya explains pre-rending on the JAMstack, comparing to progressive enhancement movement, and how its approach stacks up to common approaches of single page apps.

**[January 14th - Can a “native” WordPress site be JAMstack?](https://dev.to/shortdiv/can-a-native-wordpress-site-be-jamstack-4hab)** Diving deeper into the dynamic nature of WordPress being used as a headless CMS, this post takes it a step further into showing how you can utilize the platform as a JAMstack static site generator (SSG) in and of itself, so as to not abandon any of your most-beloved plugins and themes.

## A community JAM

### Getting Started with Serverless Functions

In this same JAMuary timeframe, Jason Lengstorf published a two-part series on getting started with serverless functions. [Deploy Your First Serverless Function Using JavaScript](https://dev.to/jlengstorf/deploy-your-first-serverless-function-using-javascript-1g4e) goes over writing the JS necessary and setting things up to get this function online. After getting your first function shipped, take things a step further by accepting user input - learn how via this article [Access Query String Parameters in Serverless Functions](https://dev.to/jlengstorf/access-query-string-parameters-in-serverless-functions-338b).

_Note: these functions tutorials use Netlify Functions for development and deployment. [Signup for Functions](https://www.netlify.com/products/functions/) for free as a pre-requirement to this series._