Supportsoft Glossary

Prebuilt Pages for Faster Websites

Static Site Generation (SSG) is a technique in web development that builds sites with pre-rendered pages at build time. In accordance with the definition, SSG builds pre-rendered HTML pages, which can be served directly via a CDN or web server. Rather than allowing users to access the site via dynamic requests, SSG allows users direct access to a finished product of an HTML page that is already complete.

SSG is typically used for sites that are focused on marketing/shopping, document/library services, articles/content/blogs, etc., where information does not change often, be it every millisecond. Next.js, Gatsby, Hugo, and Jekyll are all popular frameworks available for SSG development – they also provide additional capabilities such as templating, routeing (navigating), and connecting content from other CMSs (e.g., headless CMSs).

SSG has the potential to improve performance, reduce server demands, and enhance security because the servers won't need to take care of generating complex server-side code on each interaction or page load. Users of SSG can take advantage of this efficiency while acquiring the most relevant and real-time data through the use of APIs to obtain and/or enhance their static content..