Deploying static sites


Going with a static site can be very compelling these days, say goodbye to security and performance issues. There are no connection issues with MySQL or the white screen of death.

If you want to go static, I can highly recommend Jigsaw by Tighten. If you have node.js set up on your computer, it’s straightforward to set up, mainly if you are used to the PHP environment.

Another very popular is Jekyll. In my experience, the setup of Jekyll and Ruby can be a bit trickier (this site runs on Jekyll), but honestly, I am more into the PHP environment.

Deployment

When you have your static generator of choice installed, you can go two routes:

  1. Version control the generated static content and let GitFTP-Deploy read the changes. Set the “sync”-folder to the build folder.

Sync Root

or…

  1. Ignore the build folder in git and use the “Always Upload”-feature in GitFTP-Deploy. This means that GitFTP-Deploy will upload everything in the “Always Upload”-path on every deployment.

Sync Root

Need a simple way to do smarter deployments? Take a look at GitFTP-Deploy. Try free for 7 days.