Introduction

What is JAMStack?

The term itself was coined not too long ago by the CEO of a cloud hosting company, Netlify. It stands for JavaScript (J), reusable APIs(A), and prebuilt Markup (M). It is a modern web development stack that offers lightning fast websites, more secure data (data is managed entirely by multiple third-party cloud applications), and a shallow learning curve for new adopters.

As an emerging web development methodology, JAMStack has not yet received the recognition it deserves. Many sage developers are rooted in the traditional LAMP stack, which is tried and true. The LAMP and MEAN stacks have been around for around 15-20 years. Unlike the large developer community that supports and still uses the LAMP and MEAN stacks, JAMStack has a very vibrant, young developer community that is passionate about the latest trends in web development. This young community, mainly started by some development groups at Facebook, has been crucial to the development of the JAMStack.

Pros and Cons of JAMStack

Pros

Because JAMStack is so focused on up-to-date, continuous delivery of content, if you have a site that needs content delivered daily or more often, the JAMStack is right for you. Blogs are a prime example of a site that can thrive on a JAMStack foundation. As you update content on one of the many content API providers, such as Contentful, your website will detect new content and automatically trigger a refresh of the entire website. All load times for the site are minimized due to the auto-update feature of JAMStack web applications. All the hard work is done upfront, when the website builds and propagates on the web.

Cons

If you are building a website that relies heavily on dynamic features, then the JAMStack is not right for your purposes. Sites such as Amazon and Facebook can adopt portions of the JAMStack, but not fully integrate it into the core of their site due to their respective dynamic natures.

You also rely heavily on third-party applications, as I mentioned. So if they go down, your site also goes down. Switching third-party providers is tough, so this is a major flaw of the JAMStack however unlikely that scenario may be.