Getting Started with JAMstack: A Complete Guide

In the fast-growing world of web development, JAMstack has emerged as an architecture that provides the latest approach to developing fast, secure, and scalable websites (web applications). JAMstack allows developers to deliver better performance and enhance security by decoupling the front end from the back end. This article will guide you through the importance, core components, core principles, and best practices of using JAMstack.

What is JAMstack?

JAMstack stands for JavaScript, APIs, and Markup. JAMstack is a web development architecture that mainly focuses on developing fast and dynamic web allocations using static files that are delivered via CDN mostly and uses APIs to handle dynamic functionalities in websites, unlike traditional web architecture that relies on server-side logic mainly, while JAMstack shifts most of the workload to the client side and reduces the server-side operations requirements.

Why you should choose JAMstack?

Before choosing JAMstack as an architecture of our websites, we need to understand why JAMstack as there are plenty of options available already. In the following section, we will discuss features that developers must consider when choosing JAMstack.

• High performance: JAMstack has come up with pre-built CDN and also served with CDN, which results in faster loading compared to traditional server-rendered websites.
• Highly Scalable: Scaling sites built using JAMstack is easier as the load of the server is reduced significantly as most of the heavy lifting is done server-side.
• Security: JAMstack minimizes the server-side operations and use of third-party libraries which results in less attack surface and potential vulnerabilities.
• Dynamic API availability: With JAMstack developers can pay attention to building front-end, they can leverage powerful API for dynamic features without worrying about handling server-side code.

Key Components of JAMstack

1. JavaScript

In JAMstack applications, JavaScript can be considered as a backbone of interactivity and dynamic functionality. Using JavaScript JAMstack offloads much of its work, unlike the traditional method where servers handle most of the logic. With JavaScript, developers can use State management and client-side rendering, Handle events in a proper way, and use third-party frameworks and libraries.

2. APIs

APIs can be referred to as bridges between front-end applications and JAMstack services. APIs help developers modularize their applications and making it easy to scale and maintain. It also allows developers to integrate only those services that are needed for their applications. It also allows developers to use serverless functions where Lambda functions and Vercel functions can run on the server side without managing the server.

3. Markup

Prebuilt static HTML that is generated through a static site generator is known as Markup. This content is generally delivered to the client/end-users. The process of creating and delivering markups includes the following steps.

• Static Site Generators: It is a tool such as Next.js, and Gatsby that allows you to create static HTML files from templates and content sources.
• Pre-rendering: In this process, HTML pages are being generated at build time. This pre-rendering page ensures faster page loading and performance.
• Content Management: In JAMstack, content is mainly stored in Markdown files or fetched from CMS. The static site generator pulls this content to generate corresponding HTML pages.
• Markdown: Markdown is used by many JAMstack projects as a format for writing content. Markdown is easy and simple to learn and can be covered in HTML itself.
• Deployment and CDN: After Markups are generated, it is mainly deployed to a CDN to ensure fast and reliable delivery to users around the world.

Core Principles of JAMstack

After having a look at core components, now let's have a look at the principle that JAMstack uses in developing applications using JAMstack.

• Decoupling: As per this principle, the front-end and back-end are completely isolated. The front end is mainly built with static site generator tools or frameworks, while the dynamic functionalities handle the APIs part.
• Pre-rendering: With this principle, website content is pre-rendered at build time only, this helps users and developers to ensure that the site is fast enough and can be delivered via a CDN.
• API-first Approach: This principle ensures that dynamic functionalities are handled by APIs, which makes it easy to integrate different services, like authentication, content management, and payments.

Getting Started with JAMstack: Step-by-Step Guide

1. Choose a Static Site Generator (SSG)

A Static Site Generator is an essential tool in JAMstack that is used to convert source files into HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You should choose the correct SSG based on your knowledge, experience, and grip on various frameworks and project requirements. Below are the most widely used SSG by developers and businesses for their projects.

• Next.js
• Gatsby
• Hugo
• Jekyll

2. Set Up a Headless CMS (Optional)

This step is optional so it can be skipped, but to add more efficiency to the project you must consider it. A Headless CMS enables you to manage content without front-end specifications. You can use it to handle blog posts, pages, and other content types. Below are some popular Headless CMS used by businesses and developers widely.

• Contentful
• Sanity
• Strapi

3. Choose an API Service

With JAMstack, to add dynamic functionality to your site you will need APIs. So based on your requirements you can choose and integrate various third-party APIs or you can also build your own APIs using serverless functions. Below are some common use cases and APIs used by most businesses.

• Authentication: If your site provides a login feature then you can consider the below APIs such as Auth0 or Firebase Authentication
• Payment Processing: To make the payment process seamless and easy on your website, you can consider options such as Stripe, Paypal, and Razorpay.
• Search: To add easy and efficient search functionality to your site, you should consider using the below options such as Algolia and ElasticSearch
• Custom Functions: For your custom requirements you can consider platforms such as Vercel Functions and Netlify Functions

4. Develop Your Site

Now at this stage, you have SSG and API services ready, so you can start with developing your site. At this stage, you will create pages - Define all pages in your site such as Homepage and About us, components - Create reusable components by breaking down your UI into smaller parts, and Styling - Use style components such as CSS, SCSS, or CSS-in-JS to style your UI components.

5. Deploy Your Site

Once you are done with your website development, now it's time for deployment, which means your website is ready to go live for the end user. For deploying your website various frameworks are available out of which few are free, few are and some frameworks provide part of the service free and paid further. Some popular frameworks for hosting your websites are

• Vercel
• GitHub pages
• Render
• Firebase hosting
• AWS S3 with CloudFront (Paid)
• Google Cloud Storage (Paid)
• Microsoft Azure Static Web Apps (Paid)

6. Site Monitor and Optimize your Site

Post-deployment, monitoring your site performance, and making necessary optimization changes are essential to bring more traffic to your site with a great performance experience. For performance monitoring, you can use tools such as Google Lighthouse, WebPageTest, and Pingdom. For analytics requirements, you can use tools such as Google Analytics or Fathom Analytics to track user interactions and activities on your site.

Conclusion

In conclusion, JAMstack offers a modern approach to web application development. It mainly focuses on performance, security, and scalability. With JAMstack, leveraging APIs for dynamic functionality and decoupling front-end from back-end developers can build websites with higher performance and easy to manage. Whether you are a fresher or seasoned developer, JAMstack is a very powerful framework for creating web applications with a modern touch. This article is the perfect source for you if you want to get started with JAMstack.

Also Read:

• JAMstack vs. Traditional Web Development: Top Differences
• How to Explain Your Project in an Interview: Steps and Tips