What Is Static Site Generation (SSG) with a CMS?
IntermediateQuick Answer
TL;DR
Static site generation (SSG) pre-builds all pages as static HTML files at deploy time, pulling content from your CMS API. The resulting files are served directly from a CDN with no server processing on each request. SSG delivers excellent performance (TTFB under 50ms), strong security (no server-side code exposed), and high reliability. The tradeoff: content updates require a rebuild, though Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) largely mitigates this.
Key Takeaways
- SSG pre-builds all pages at deploy time — no server processing per request
- Pages are served from CDN edge nodes, giving TTFB under 50ms globally
- Security improves because there's no database or server-side code exposed to the public internet
- Content updates require a rebuild; ISR allows individual pages to regenerate without a full rebuild