What is Static Site Generation?
Static Site Generation (SSG) is a web development approach where all HTML pages are pre-built at build time rather than generated on each request. The resulting static files can be served from a CDN with no server-side processing, delivering exceptional performance and security.
How Does Static Site Generation (SSG) Work?
During the build process, an SSG tool generates a complete HTML file for every page on the site by fetching data from APIs, databases, or content files (like Markdown) and rendering them through templates. The output is a directory of static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files that can be deployed to any static hosting platform or CDN. Since no server-side code runs when a visitor loads a page, static sites are inherently fast, secure, and inexpensive to host.
SSG is ideal for content-driven websites like blogs, documentation, marketing sites, and portfolios. Popular SSG frameworks include Next.js (with static export), Gatsby, Hugo, Astro, and Eleventy. The main limitation is that content updates require a rebuild and redeployment, though modern approaches like Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) in Next.js allow individual pages to be regenerated on demand without rebuilding the entire site. For sites that do not change frequently, SSG combined with CDN hosting delivers the best possible performance at the lowest cost.
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