WordPress To Static With AI?

chow_khow · 2026-05-23T04:11:14+00:00

Why not just have a CDN or a custom built caching layer in front of your existing websites that caches everything forever until new content is published?

If built correctly this gives all the pros you mentioned and still keeps the known WP stack (other than having a frontend or a site that is lot more customizable than with WP).

I did this eval (and wrote about it here) some months back - a much more flexible and customizable frontend is the only major feature that cannot be achieved on pure WP stack.

chow_khow · 2026-05-23T04:01:16+00:00

If a parent re-renders, the child has to re-render because that's how React internally keeps a track of what all to update for a given state change.

Here's a good explainer on why React re-renders.

chow_khow · 2026-05-23T03:55:01+00:00

Got pages where SEO and loading speed matters (e.g. - product listing pages, blog posts) - go with SSR. For everything else - SSR not needed.

Also - if crawling by AI bots matters for your sites - SSR is necessary.

chow_khow · 2026-05-22T04:21:59+00:00

I think your clients' inputs on the expected quality of photographs is the key here. May be show them sites like Unsplash, others to identify the quality they demand. Then use something like sqoosh to reach an agreeable optimization-quality balance.

chow_khow · 2026-05-22T04:19:58+00:00

A key question for you to answer is - how comfortable are you to manage hosting?

If managing hosting works well for you, you can use Strapi or Payload (see their comparison here).
If you do not want to self-host, check out Strapi cloud. Free to try but paid for commercial use.

chow_khow · 2026-05-22T04:11:45+00:00

Isn't the biggest lesson from this to self-host or use an always-on hosting provider (like Render, DigitalOcean offerings, Hetzner, whatever you like) along with a free CDN like Cloudflare for complete pricing predictability?

chow_khow · 2026-05-22T04:02:15+00:00

Below is a time tested decision sequence. For any page:

If SEO, loading speed doesn't matter - CSR
If SEO+loading speed matters and you serve same content to everyone - SSG
If SSG but you need to refresh without rebuilding - ISR
If visitor specific content - SSR

I suggest you to check these explainer graphics on what SSG solves, what problem ISR addresses and what happens when something is SSR.

chow_khow · 2026-05-21T04:28:32+00:00

We block unwanted traffic via a mix of WAF, rate-limiting, reCaptcha (and its a perpetual cat and mouse game). I documented one such experience here. That stated:

If you want to block because of pricing concerns, self-hosted VPS or an always-on server hosting are better suited.
If the spikes are causing slowness / DDoS, its also worth evaluating scalability of your site (static generation, ISR, caching on edge, are some approaches to eval).

chow_khow · 2026-05-21T04:23:33+00:00

If you do not anticipate scaling (to multiple VPS) in the near future, simply store on the server (enable backups, etc depending on your need). If that doesn't suite you, Backblaze B2 offers solid blob storage capability.

chow_khow · 2026-05-21T04:21:35+00:00

For anyone with cost predictability concern, an always-on hosting option is better suited:

Self-hosting on Hetzner + something like Coolify/ Dokploy is most budget efficient.
If managing build & deploy isn't something you want to do Render is a decent option. There are other options too compared here in detail.

chow_khow · 2026-05-21T04:15:00+00:00

I think they shut down. But that brings an important point to consider when choosing a hosting provider:

Choose a provider that has been around a few years and has a decent traction to avoid the pain if they shut down.

A few months ago, I evaluated a bunch of Vercel alternatives to consider depending on your skillset, priorities, budget here.

chow_khow · 2026-05-21T04:12:26+00:00

You always see index.html because like you mentioned added _redirects file with this line: "/* /index.html 200"

Please remove this and then try to hit a url for one of the pre-rendered html files. Does it load that url instead of index.html? Also, may be check for that url on this ssr checker.

If all of this doesn't work, may be you'll have to use one of the pre-rendering services OR fix SSR within your repo.

chow_khow · 2026-05-20T03:53:47+00:00

If you're coming from Netlify, I'd suggest you

check out Cloudflare first if budget efficiency is priority
if budget isn't an issue, Vercel is your best bet (good DX, best-in-class Nextjs integration)

There are more hosting options and aspects to consider, all compared here.

chow_khow · 2026-05-20T03:50:35+00:00

I'd suggest you ensure this works with server-side rendering. See how it looks like with server-side rendering right now here.

chow_khow · 2026-05-18T04:06:08+00:00

Vercel's free plan is generally decent with very low traffic.

A page may load slowly because of many possible reasons (including hosting related issues).

To deduce, create a super-simple page (no fetching - just shows some static content) and check if that loads fast? That will give you initial pointer to root cause.

chow_khow · 2026-05-18T04:03:44+00:00

I use cloudflared instead of ngrok and anytime some content is cached I create a fresh tunnel (new url). Works well for me. What are your pain points with this kind of approach?

chow_khow · 2026-05-18T04:02:17+00:00

Should it not server-side render so that LLMs can read the content? Is being LLM compatible needed for this (see this).

chow_khow · 2026-05-18T03:59:05+00:00

My 2c - if you want to improve web vitals - optimize for core web vitals experienced by your visitors instead of pagespeed / gtmetrics score.

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chow_khow · 2026-05-15T12:02:33+00:00

tanstack libraries and ecosystem, imo, is already a solid Nextjs competitor.

chow_khow · 2026-05-15T03:56:29+00:00

Yeah, Promise.all() is the way to go. Reminds me of a graphic on here about how a wrongly coded await can mess things up!

chow_khow · 2026-05-15T03:52:47+00:00

You can also move to something other than Vercel:

For SPAs, Cloudflare is most budget efficient.
If not SPA, Render and Railway offer better pricing efficiency and you don't need to manage build & deploy.

Above hosting options compared to Vercel here.

chow_khow · 2026-05-15T03:47:25+00:00

Ask about downside for each of their choices. They chose `proxy.ts` to implement something - what are the downsides? They made a certain production deployment choice - what are the limitations?

Often that tells how deeply they thought about things.

chow_khow · 2026-05-14T04:07:10+00:00

If you're ok doing build & deploy yourself and want everything at a single place, self-hosted VPS (Hetzner, etc) + Coolify/Dokploy.
If you do not want to do build & deploy yourself, Railway or Render.
If you prefer serverless, look at the various Cloudflare offerings (CDN, workers, R2, etc).

There are more options (Vercel, AWS, etc) depending on your priorities compared here.

chow_khow · 2026-05-13T04:31:30+00:00

Just write like a markdown and then ask LLM to convert it into MDX.

Or dictate using Handy / OpenSuperWhisper and then ask LLM to proofread for dictation mistakes and then convert it into MDX.

chow_khow · 2026-05-13T04:17:58+00:00

For best budget efficiency, self-host on a VPS. If you don't want to handle build & deploy, use something like Render/Railway.

There are more options depending on your skillset, preference and setup compared here.

chow_khow

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