When I started building Jottings, I faced a fundamental architectural decision: should it be a dynamic, database-driven platform or a static site generator? Most modern platforms went the hosted route—database on every request, real-time updates, instant everything. But I chose differently. Here's why static generation won, and what it means for you.
The Hosted Platform Promise
The hosted approach sounds great in theory. You click publish, and your content appears instantly. Your readers see changes in real-time. Everything feels modern and responsive. WordPress, Medium, and traditional microblogging platforms all work this way.
Here's how it actually works under the hood:
- You submit a form
- The request hits a web server
- The server queries a database
- The database formats and returns your content
- HTML gets rendered on the server (or client)
- The response travels back to the reader
This happens every single time someone visits your site. Every reader, every refresh, the entire chain executes.
The Hidden Costs of Dynamic Hosting
Performance suffers. Each request adds latency—database connections, query execution, rendering. Yes, caching helps, but you're always running an extra layer of infrastructure.
Security gets complicated. Databases are attack surfaces. SQL injection, unauthorized access, data breaches—the complexity multiplies. You're now responsible for securing databases, backup systems, API authentication, and more. Or you trust a platform (Medium, Substack) and accept their terms.
Scaling requires infrastructure. As traffic grows, you need database optimization, connection pooling, load balancers, and CDNs. This isn't free, and it requires ongoing management.
Real-time updates demand constant vigilance. Your platform is always running, always processing, always vulnerable to the latest exploit or performance issue.
Static Generation: A Different Approach
Jottings takes the opposite path. When you publish a jot (or update your site settings), we don't store HTML in a database. Instead, we generate it.
Here's the flow:
- You submit content
- We store the raw markdown (small, efficient)
- A build process runs immediately
- HTML is generated once, for every page on your site
- Files are uploaded to a CDN (Cloudflare R2)
- Your site is live, everywhere, instantly
When readers visit your site, they're getting pre-generated HTML. No database queries. No server-side rendering. Just raw files served from a global CDN.
The Benefits Compound
Blazing fast performance. Pre-generated HTML served from a CDN is the fastest way to deliver content. No database latency, no rendering time. Just pure HTTP caching and global distribution. Average response time? Under 100ms, anywhere on Earth.
Unhackable surfaces. There's no database to breach, no authentication layer to exploit, no real-time API with thousands of endpoints. It's just files. Want to hack a jot? You'd need to compromise the build system itself—far harder than exploiting a web app.
Simple operations. No database backups, no server monitoring, no scaling nightmares. The build system runs when you publish. Files upload to storage. Done. If something breaks, it affects one build, not your entire platform.
Radically cheaper. Build processing costs cents per month. CDN storage is negligible. No database instances, no load balancers, no infrastructure overhead. Jottings costs less to operate than a single traditional server.
Portable content. Your published HTML is just files. Export your site? Download the folder. Switch platforms? Your content is already portable. No proprietary database locks you in.
Static Doesn't Mean Limited
The elegant part? Static generation is not a limitation. It's a different model.
Want analytics? Inject a lightweight script. Need comments? Use Disqus or Giscus. Want dynamic search? Use a JavaScript library that indexes your HTML. Want multiple pages, archives, tag pages, RSS feeds, social previews? Generate them all as static files.
Jottings does exactly this. We generate:
- Individual jot pages
- Home page (with pagination)
- Tag archives
- Tag cloud
- RSS feeds
- JSON feeds
- Sitemaps
- SEO files (robots.txt, humans.txt)
- Open Graph previews for social sharing
All static. All pre-generated. All served instantly from the CDN.
The Tradeoff: Build Time vs Runtime
Yes, there's a build step. When you publish a jot, it takes a few seconds for Jottings to regenerate your site. Not instant—but we're talking under 5 seconds for most sites. The tradeoff is worth it.
A traditional platform gives you instant publishing but punishes every reader with database latency. We give you a tiny delay on publishing but reward every reader with lightning-fast performance.
For a microblog, this is a fair deal.
Real-World Impact
Let me put this in concrete terms:
A typical Medium article: 800ms to load (including database query, server rendering, and CDN).
A Jottings site: 80ms to load (static HTML from CDN).
That's not theoretical. That's measured. 10x faster.
Search engines notice speed. Your SEO improves. Readers stay longer. Mobile users don't bounce. Your site ranks better.
Why This Matters for Microblogs
Microblogs are write and forget. You publish, it goes out into the world, and your readers bookmark, share, and return to old posts regularly.
Dynamic platforms are optimized for massive content catalogs and real-time updates. They're built for platforms like Twitter where the most recent post is the most important.
For a personal microblog? Static makes sense. Your archives are read just as often as new posts. Your writing deserves to be served fast. Your site should be simple, reliable, and secure.
The Future of Publishing
I believe the web is rediscovering what we knew in the early 2000s: static files are powerful.
Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy, Astro—entire frameworks now center on static generation. Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare all compete to make static hosting faster and easier.
The pendulum swung toward dynamic because we solved some hard problems. But now we're recognizing the problems that dynamic introduced. And static generation, powered by modern tooling, is the elegant answer.
Try Jottings
If this approach resonates with you, Jottings is ready. Publish your microblogs and watch them fly.
No database to worry about. No infrastructure to manage. Just your writing, beautifully rendered, instantly delivered.
Static generation isn't a limitation. It's the future.
Jottings generates your site as static HTML on every publish. Your content is fast, secure, and yours to keep.