I have tested a Jamstack (Javascript with GraphQL APIs and Markup) with Gatsby and Netlify to make a blog with markdown (with the mdx file extension for rich editing) during a few days.
On the performance side, my first feedback is rather positive, this is very fast, even on a mobile.
Best of all, this architecture and stack is impressive and easy to learn!
As a reminder, the main steps to build a blog with Gatsby are:
- install your development environment following the official documentation
- choose your starter.
- write your first sample article with markdown (markdown it is a rudimentary way for writing stuff, you should read the official documentation before).
- setup a headless content management system (CMS that you can use in standalone), you have many choices.
- write and update your blog posts with or without the CMS
- build the static site with gatsby build command.
- publish manually your HTML files from the dist folder in your hoster server.
- optional: publish the HTML files automatically via a “Github action” pipeline automaticly triggered subsequently to a commit.
- Last but not the least: secure the application (you should do it at each steps on each layer of your app).
Soon, a post to answer my unanswered questions:
- How can I secure and anonymize a Gatsby blog?
- Which top 10 plugins should I use to improve my blog with Gatsby?
See you soon