Dynamic websites

Dynamic websites (in this definition) are websites that have a back-end and frond-end component (mostly MySQL and a PHP model). Those sites are generated with the files and content provided from MySQL to pages displayed for visitors. Dynamic sites are powerfull and easy to use.

As someone who has been working with websites for quite some while now. I have seen numerous “Content Management Systems” (CMS) like Wordpress or Joomla. One of the major issues I have with those systems: They need continous work on them. If it’s not an update for the system itself. It might be that you need a plugin to make some of your requirements possible.

The use of those plugins also brings in another issue, they might potentially introduce vulnerabilities, or the maintainer stops maintaining the plugin. I have also seen that plugins cannot be updated from the control pane anymore, leaving you with the outdated (and potentially vulnerable) version of a plugin or other component on your website.

Static websites

After reading about static website generators (Jekyll, Hugo) I was curious on what these sites could mean for me.

As I started exploring the possibilities with static websites generators I was really happy to see I could create whatever type of website I wanted. The only thing for me to put on the internet are some flat HTML files, which reduces the attack surface of a website substantially.

If you want to know more about working with HUGO. See my post about getting started with HUGO.