Static websites are safer, faster, and cheaper than dynamic websites. And with the growing number of static site generators available, you can get the best of both worlds: dynamic templates rendered locally but pre-built and served as flat, static files in production.

A growing ecosystem of static website services helps mimic most of the features of a dynamic website, including user authentication, accepting payments, forms, emails, and even admin/CMS’s similar to WordPress.

In fact there’s even a phrase for this approach, JAMStack, given its growing popularity.

Below is a curated list of services to help you launch a robust static website.

Table of Contents

• Static Site Generators
• Static Hosting
• Static CMS
• Search
• Comments
• Live Messaging
• Newsletters
• Forms & Surveys
• Analytics
• Maps
• Payments
• User-Generated Content

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Static Site Generators

• Gatsby - ReactJS-powered.
• Jekyll - Ruby-powered, popular, many plug-ins.
• Hugo - Go-powered, fast.
• Pelican - Python-powered.
• Cactus - Python and Django-powered.
• Lektor - Python, file-based, CMS.

Static Hosting

• Netlify - Continuous deployment, CDN, and CMS. Highly recommended.
• Now - Fast, global deployments.
• Amazon S3 - Granddaddy of static hosting especially combined with CloudFront for a CDN.
• Github Pages - Free Github hosting.
• Aerobatic - Static hosting for Bitbucket.
• Forge - Drag-and-drop interface via Hammer Mac app.
• surge - Single-command publishing.
• GitLab Pages - Free GitLab hosting.
• PubStorm - Free custom domains, SSL, and CDN.

Static CMS

• Contentful - API-first CMS.
• Cloud Cannon - Cloud CMS for Jekyll.
• Forestry - CMS for Jekyll/Hugo sites.
• Lektor - Mac Desktop app CMS.
• Pulse - Flat-file CMS.
• Prismic - API-based CMS backend.

User Authentication

• AuthO - Universal auth for all platforms.
• GoTrue - API for registration and authentication.

Search

• Algolia - Fast, powerful search-as-a-service.
• Google Custom Search Engine - Custom Google Search for your site.

Comments

• Disqus - Easy to use, embeddable, email notifications.

Live Messaging

• Drift - An AI-powered messaging app.
• Intercom - Customer messaging app.
• Olark - Live messaging app.

Newsletters

• MailChimp - Email marketing.
• MailGun - Transactional email API.
• SendGrid - Marketing and transactional email.
• Drip - Ecommerce emails.

Analytics

• Google Analytics - Free website analytics.
• Heap - “Capture Everything” analytics.
• MixPanel - Mobile analytics.
• Segment - Collect all your customer data in one place.

Forms and Surveys

• FormSpree - HTML only to receive emails.
• Google Forms - Free Google-powered forms and surveys.
• SurveyMonkey - Easy-to-use and free surveys.
• TypeForm - Beautiful embeddable forms.
• WuFoo - Simple online forms.

Maps

• Google Maps - Ubiquitous, easy to embed.
• Mapbox - Beautiful and customizable maps.

Payments

• SnipCart - HTML/Javascript powered shopping cart.
• FlatMarket - Free, open source e-commerce platform for static websites.

User-Generated Content

• StaticMan - Requires Jekyll + Github Pages but very powerful and cool.

See something that’s missing? Email me and I’ll add it to the list.