Static and Dynamic websites differ in the way they deliver or display content to their users. A static website always provides fixed content to its users. However, a dynamic website provides different content each time the user accesses the website.
The next significant difference between them is that a static website loads faster than a dynamic website. Before getting into detail, let us understand the basic term website.
What is a Website?
A website is a collection of web pages that we have to write in HTML language. You can easily identify a website with a unique domain name, such as our website has the domain name “techdifferences”. Each website is for a specific purpose; some especially provide educational content, some websites provide news, some provide entertainment, etc.
Every website has a Home page containing several hyperlinks that can navigate you to different web pages of the website. A website is stored on a web server connected to the Internet, allowing users to access the website.
A website can be either static or dynamic, which totally depends on the requirement of the website’s owner. In this section, we will figure out all the possible differences between static and dynamic websites.
Content: Static Vs Dynamic Website
Comparison Chart
| Basis for Comparison | Static Website | Dynamic Website |
|---|---|---|
| Basic | The content of a static website remains the same each time you visit the website. | The content of a dynamic website changes each time you visit the website. |
| Language Required | HTML, CSS, Java Script | Ruby, PHP, Python |
| Database Requirement | Do not require a database. | Requires database |
| Complexity | Quite simple | Complex |
| Dependency | There is a dependency on the developer. | Less dependency on the developer. |
| Load Time | Loads fast | Load slow |
| Update | Difficult to update | Easy to Update |
| Management | Intensive content management | Easy to manage |
What is Static Website?
The webpages of a static website have fixed content and are delivered to the user’s browser as it is stored on the web server.
How to Build a Static Website?
We have different ways to build a static website, and it all depends on your knowledge and experience in this field. You can start from scratch, or you start building using templates.
You can start creating webpages from scratch using HTML, CSS, etc. If you want to use templates easily, you can use Static Site Generator (SSG).
Static Website Generator
With SSG, you must prepare the content you want to publish on the website and apply the content to the available templates to generate a static webpage.
Several SSGs are available such as Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, Nuxt, etc. The static site generator is much better than the hand-coded static site.
Static Website Examples
- Britannica Online
- Personal websites
- mp3.com
- techdifferences.com
- binaryterms.com
Advantages and Disadvantages of Static Website
Advantages
- Static websites are easy to develop.
- Compared to a dynamic website, a static website loads faster.
- Static websites do not depend on a database or other application servers.
- Regarding security, static websites are more secure.
- Static website loads faster as pre-rendered webpages are stored on the server and delivered directly to the user’s browser.
Disadvantage
- A static website restricts scalability as each page has to be individually created, which makes it long and slow.
- It isn’t easy to manage static websites
What is a Dynamic Website?
The dynamic website delivers different content on the user’s browser each time the user accesses the website. Now, what the dynamic webpage is going to display depends on several factors, such as:
- Location of user
- Local time of the user
- Settings of user’s browsers
- User’s activity on the website
Unlike a static website that directly delivers the webpage from the server, a dynamic website generates a webpage on-the-fly depending on the user’s request. Whenever a user requests a dynamic webpage, the server collects information from multiple databases or CMS (Control Management System), generates a dynamic webpage, and sends it to the user’s browser.
As the dynamic webpage is built at the server end, we have to use server-side scripting. So, the language we must know is Python, Ruby, and PHP.
Dynamic Website Examples
- Youtube.com
- Facebook.com
- Instagram.com
Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages
- With a dynamic website, it is easy to roll out updation across several pages without affecting the website’s structure. Thus, it makes maintenance of the dynamic website easy and fast.
- A dynamic website creates a customized webpage for the user to create a better user experience.
Disadvantages
- The dynamic website takes time to load on the user’s browser as it renders the webpage by collecting information from multiple databases and CMS. This slows down the performance of the website.
- Creating a dynamic website is complex as it requires multiple resources to render a webpage.
Key Differences Between Static and Dynamic Websites
- A static and dynamic website is that a static website displays fixed content each time it is accessed. However, the dynamic website displays different content each time user accesses it.
- Static websites are quick to build as they are less complex and need not be connected to any database or application server. However, dynamic websites take more time and resources to build, as here, you need to organize and connect the database to the right web pages.
- We use HTML, CSS and JavaScript to build a static website. However, the dynamic webpage is created on the server side, so we require server-side scripting languages such as PHP, Python, and Ruby.
- The static website stores its content directly on the server and fetches it as it is on the user’s browser’s request. However, a dynamic website stores its content on multiple databases or CMS. Depending on the user’s request, the server pulls the data from multiple databases or CMS, generates a dynamic webpage, and sends it to the user’s browser.
- As the static website has pre-rendered webpages thus, it loads faster. Whereas with a dynamic website, the server takes time to collect information from the database to render a dynamic webpage, so it loads slowly.
- It is quite difficult to update a static website as each time you want to make changes to the website; you have to change the code of the website. However, the dynamic website updation can automatically be duplicated across hundreds of pages.
- Static websites are challenging to manage as edits to the static website are made page by page, and if the content grows rapidly, then management becomes even more difficult. Conversely, management is easier in a dynamic website as the user can manage the website’s contents without touching the website’s design or structure.
Conclusion
So, this is all about static and dynamic websites and their differences. However, the facts are that websites are growing complex over time. We want our websites to be more functional. Meanwhile, we want them to perform well and load faster on the user’s browser.
So, today developers go for the hybrid approach, where you can build static and dynamic web pages within the same website.
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