
Ask HN: Do you have examples of larger companies using static site generators? - lwhi
I&#x27;m currently looking into the viability of using a static site generator (GatsybyJS) to provide a PWA-type experience for a multi-locale CMS driven site.<p>The content will be maintained using a CMS, and the site will be regenerated and re-deployed on each publish. Any transactional requests will be serviced by a custom API-driven backend system.<p>Aside from performance and scalability advantages, I like the extra layer of security provided by removing dynamic-access to the CMS.  I also like the level of control provided by combining code and content within each discrete build artifact.<p>In order to help make my case, it would be really useful to reference examples of larger companies that have successfully used this approach. Conversely, any stories about why this approach could fail would be equally useful.<p>Best<p>Luke
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sgallant
Good job! We see many orgs adopting this approach for the same reasons you
mentioned (disclaimer: we build a CMS for these sites
[https://forestry.io](https://forestry.io)).

The healthcare.gov site might be a good comparison for your team. It was a
large legacy-CMS site when it launched. It had a lot of performance problems
so they migrated to Jekyll which solved everything. Here’s a quick video from
one of the guys describing the migration: [https://www.msnbc.com/all-
in/watch/the-nerds-who-saved-obama...](https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/the-
nerds-who-saved-obamacare-175808579562)

Also, Kyle Rush worked on the original Obama site (Jekyll) and shares insights
here in this video. He attributes their success to the fact that their front-
end devs were able to A/B test the site multiple times per day to increase the
donations. It’s loaded with good arguments to move to a static platform.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8vsuiXiL0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ia8vsuiXiL0)

If you're curious to see some build-time benchmarks for Jekyll/Hugo, check out
this (from our team) [https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll-
benchmark/](https://forestry.io/blog/hugo-vs-jekyll-benchmark/)

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jppope
I'm moving all my WP/Static stuff to a SSG and am incredibly interested in
knowing the same... I know the Vue docs are generated using a SSG, and all of
Segment's stuff too... but I would be very interested to know other companies

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smt88
This is effectively how most large orgs use WordPress. There's aggressive
caching that stores static versions of each page.

It's unusual for high-traffic sites to dynamically generate every page. For
WordPress, the trigger is sometimes "on first visit" instead of "on publish",
but otherwise it's a good analogy for what you're doing.

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stefanjudis
Smashing mag is running static. :)
[https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/03/16/smashing-magazine-
ju...](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2017/03/16/smashing-magazine-just-
got-10x-faster/)

