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Wordpress is pretty great but for me the main reason to go with a static site generator is the simplicity of hosting. Wordpress is a complex beast which require

Wordpress is pretty great but for me the main reason to go with a static site generator is the simplicity of hosting. Wordpress is a complex beast which requires a server and application that must be updated regularly and backed up. With a SSG I just have gitlab host it for me which is everything sorted and git does the backups.

quickthrower2 6y ago
It depends on your "Just". With Wordpress I "Just" use Dreamhost and do a one-click install. The trick with Wordpress is to accept that somethings wont be as slick as if you spent $1-10k of your own time building perfect static site generator and customising it beautifully. You have to do what most non-IT people do and make do. But I feel like I rarely have to make do with Wordpress - I can get speed, I can customise a bit with PHP sometimes (although I avoid that) and there are a tonne of plugins. You can build many "no-code" level solutions in Wordpress for free.
kayodelycaon 6y ago
Yup. As I mentioned, it's a tool. But the biggest reason I use Wordpress is I can't handle the friction of treating my website like code. My author hat hates programming and needs a faster feedback loop than flipping back and forth between different windows to see what's happening. Being able to click Edit, fix a typo, and hit Publish, without any other steps, is what I need. That's before I get into all of the features Wordpress supports. I installed the JetPack plugin and now I have mailing lists, analytics, monitoring, and a bunch of other things with No Extra Work. For any website, the complexity has to go somewhere. If you're a programmer with simple needs, an SSG is easier than wrangling an angry kraken like Wordpress.
kortilla 6y ago
git does not do the backups, it provides file history, which is not the same thing. There are many horror stories of people using git as their backup strategy and finding out a corrupted object or a goofed up rebase not noticed right away meant a mass panic looking for an old clone. If you want to backup your site, do it in addition to git.
laurent92 6y ago
But my problem is similar with static sites: The various templates I’ve bought used Jekyll (Python), Gulp and NPM, it is not feasible to explain newbies how to properly install the dependencies for 3 systems (especially Python, with the 2.7 vs 3.7 difficulty). Wordpress is inherently unstable on the long term because plugins must be upgraded (anyone who’s had a vulnerability issue knows it). But there is no other decently simple technology.
- canofbars 6y ago
  Hugo is pretty easy to use. Its in the repos for most distros and you just grab the premade gitlab CI file for it and it all just works. Writing posts is slightly more of a pain than with wordpress but its nothing compared to the pain of either updating wordpress or having it hacked.

quickthrower2 6y ago

It depends on your "Just". With Wordpress I "Just" use Dreamhost and do a one-click install. The trick with Wordpress is to accept that somethings wont be as slick as if you spent $1-10k of your own time building perfect static site generator and customising it beautifully. You have to do what most non-IT people do and make do. But I feel like I rarely have to make do with Wordpress - I can get speed, I can customise a bit with PHP sometimes (although I avoid that) and there are a tonne of plugins. You can build many "no-code" level solutions in Wordpress for free.

kayodelycaon 6y ago

Yup. As I mentioned, it's a tool. But the biggest reason I use Wordpress is I can't handle the friction of treating my website like code. My author hat hates programming and needs a faster feedback loop than flipping back and forth between different windows to see what's happening. Being able to click Edit, fix a typo, and hit Publish, without any other steps, is what I need. That's before I get into all of the features Wordpress supports. I installed the JetPack plugin and now I have mailing lists, analytics, monitoring, and a bunch of other things with No Extra Work. For any website, the complexity has to go somewhere. If you're a programmer with simple needs, an SSG is easier than wrangling an angry kraken like Wordpress.

kortilla 6y ago

git does not do the backups, it provides file history, which is not the same thing. There are many horror stories of people using git as their backup strategy and finding out a corrupted object or a goofed up rebase not noticed right away meant a mass panic looking for an old clone. If you want to backup your site, do it in addition to git.

laurent92 6y ago

But my problem is similar with static sites: The various templates I’ve bought used Jekyll (Python), Gulp and NPM, it is not feasible to explain newbies how to properly install the dependencies for 3 systems (especially Python, with the 2.7 vs 3.7 difficulty). Wordpress is inherently unstable on the long term because plugins must be upgraded (anyone who’s had a vulnerability issue knows it). But there is no other decently simple technology.

canofbars 6y ago
Hugo is pretty easy to use. Its in the repos for most distros and you just grab the premade gitlab CI file for it and it all just works. Writing posts is slightly more of a pain than with wordpress but its nothing compared to the pain of either updating wordpress or having it hacked.