The Problem
As a team, we were looking into the various SSG options that have sprung up over the last few years. We wanted to see how they compared to our current WordPress stack, and if they could be used to replace it.
The Solution
The idea of Gatsby seemed to be the most promising as it allowed for us to build out sites using GraphQL alongside WordPress, but did not limit us to using a particular CMS.
During this investigation, I built out a Gatsby starter site that pulls in data from a WordPress backend. The starter is setup in a way that means developers can quickly get up and running with a WordPress site driven by ACF flexible content fields.
Ultimately, I decided that Gatsby was not going to be a great fit for our team. Although it was a great framework for SSG, the vendor lock in to Gatsby Cloud was a deal breaker for us. It was too expensive for what was offered and we had to pay extra for their equavilent for Next JS’s Incremental Static Regeneration.
The Result
Labelled ‘Springboard’, the starter site acts as a great jumping off point for any WordPress site that needs to be built with Gatsby. The level of boilerplate code it provides is just enough to get you started, but not so much that you’re forced into a particular approach of building. It also contained a few example functions that could be used to pull in data from WordPress, and a few example components that could be used to display that data.
The Tech
Under the hood, this starter uses:
- ReactJS
- Gatsby
- GraphQL
- PostCSS
- TailwindCSS
It depends on:
- WordPress
- ACF
- WPGraphQL
- WPGraphQL for ACF
- WPGraphQL for Yoast SEO