Netlify doesn't even require Git - you can just zip some static files and drop it in their uploader.
Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
51–60 of 187 posts
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#52Question to Netlify's founders. Did you really have to raise from VCs? Was the company already profitable?
We started out bootstrapping and were profitable before our first round of funding. However, we always strongly believed that the larger vision of what we wanted to build would be impossible to achieve without outside funding.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not a ton. But the idea here is you use javascript to call an API for your dynamic content. This way your javascript/css/images are all setup on a CDN that you don't have to manage.
But where does the API come from? Dynamic content needs don't go away with static sites and usually it's yet another service to worry about.
In our case, we moved a blog from WP to a static Gatsby.js site. It's hosted on Netlify and all content is driven by Contentful where updates trigger a webhook on Netlify to rebuild the blog (new posts are pulled during this build process).
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#54This may be a naive question, but how many websites are actually static these days?
There is a static renaissance happening as people realize it doesn't make sense to serve content that rarely changes from a database. Think of the millions of Wordpress blogs that could benefit from the speed, reliability and security of a static frontend. Here is more in-depth argument for static:
https://www.takeshape.io/articles/why-the-best-websites-are-...
Also check out https://jamstack.org/ for more info on tools and techniques for going static.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#55May not be widely known, but a startup named Divshot launched what feels to me now like an identical service to Netlify, just a few years earlier. Existed ~2012-2015. They were acquired by Google and their product was converted into Firebase Hosting. I haven't tried it, though: https://firebase.google.com/docs/hosting/
I use Firebase hosting for a static site that gets between 100-400gb of traffic per month, and it works out a bit cheaper than Netlify ($15-$50/m vs. flat $45/m). I hardly ever use their web interface and just deal with their one line CLI.
My biggest concern with Firebase is if it's still going to be around in a year or two. That's why I'd be reluctant to use it for DB and auth stuff. I narrowly avoided jumping into Parse back in the day before that was shuttered so I'm wary.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#56This may be a naive question, but how many websites are actually static these days?
I'm sure there will be a lot soon. You can trigger builds anytime content is updated via Netlify CMS/Contentful etc.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#57Ok, I'm a web dev and I hate having to deal with web servers, configs, CI, etc. The idea sounds great, but I can't understand how this works from this post. Can someone explain how this works exactly? Are they basically offering a way to prebuild apps to static assets and host them on CDNs? How do server-side only things will happen then?
Move these to either a client side database like firebase/firestore or to lambda / cloud functions.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#58I've been looking for a service like this and I'm really interested. Too bad the site is choking a bit on extra traffic right now. I'll have to check back later.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#59I use Netlify for all my static sites and it's been amazing. All I have to do is push and they take care of everything else, I can't understate how much I love the product. If you want to check out a live deployment, my website https://www.stavros.io/ is on Netlify. I especially like how they provide forms, lambdas and very easy testing by just pushing to another git branch. I don't see why anyone would use Github/Gi…
I don't like "+1" type comments, but this is a rare instance where I want to highly recommend Netlify. From support to performance, uptime and UI, they've been exceptional.
Re: Netlify raises $30M to replace webservers with Application Delivery Network
#60Ok, I'm a web dev and I hate having to deal with web servers, configs, CI, etc. The idea sounds great, but I can't understand how this works from this post. Can someone explain how this works exactly? Are they basically offering a way to prebuild apps to static assets and host them on CDNs? How do server-side only things will happen then?
> How do server-side only things will happen then?
By calling a service from JavaScript. What you're probably getting at is, how do I dynamically generate web pages?
That's different. As a web developer you're probably used to generating the presentation tier on the server at least some of the time. You query a database and spit out some HTML. The so-called "static" approach here means:
1. Generate more stuff up front with build tools that you previously would do at request time. For example, why write server code to generate and cache a blog on every request when you can just build it whenever you write a new blog post?
2. In many cases this greatly narrows down the dynamic stuff that might need to happen. See if you can use JavaScript to fill in the rest. Instead of inserting that ad banner with server code, write a JavaScript function to fetch it from a service (like Lambda) and update the DOM.
3. You can be as dynamic as you want to be by expanding on what you do with JavaScript and services. This is sometimes called writing a single page app. It's maybe more complicated but on the plus side, it's how you write mobile apps and you may be able to share the same backend.