Jamstack Architecture

With the Jamstack websites, the tangible assets are pre-rendered static files (like content from headless CMS or headless commerce, for example) deployed on CDN. At the same time, the dynamic side of things is handled with API calls at run time (dynamic content like forms, search, or authentication, for example).

In essence, this means all of your business logic and 3rd party services are handled with APIs in the backend.

It depends on who you ask. JAMstack was an abbreviation for JavaScript, API, and Markup as developer’s stack. In recent times the term outgrew itself, and what it stands for today is very different from what the term referred to.

Technology and language around it evolved thanks to greater adoption and a larger ecosystem. We use the term Jamstack to differentiate today’s widespread meaning from the original concept mentioned above.

Performance, security, improved flexibility and scalability, and better developer experience. The fastest way to deliver web content to the end users is with static files. The Jamstack approach ensures exactly that, thanks to static files served via CDNs for unmatched page loading times.

Static assets and clear separation of services maintained by 3rd party providers (think of one service for the content, one for search, one for payment, etc.) make it much harder to find individual vulnerabilities.

This also allows developers to spend less time on maintenance issues and focus on building a compelling front-end user experience.

Finally, the ability to bring your own frontend and decide on backend solutions that best fit your use case, and with static files as main assets, easier scaling is guaranteed.

For most businesses, all of these benefits are easily translated into operational and development cost savings.

“Jamstack is a buzzword that means HTML/JS/CSS on steroids, thanks to the ecosystem of tooling that makes it possible.”
Sébastien Morel, CTO at Crystallize.

With Jamstack, it’s all about the tools you use. You can use one of the JavaScript frameworks (like React, Vue, or Angular) or one of the static site generators (SSGs) (like Gatsby, Next js, Hugo, Gridsome, etc.) to build the front end for your project.

The content is managed with headless CMS or headless commerce solutions, while the problems or specific website requests are handled with cloud services via an API (like forms, search, login, payment, etc.).

Finally, modern-day hosting and deployment platforms (like Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, etc.) are there to provide you with a home for your project.

While one of the most significant benefits of using Jamstack is mixing and matching tools. However, the sheer volume of available tools in the space can be overwhelming at times.

The traditional monolithic workflow is a method of building web applications that relies on a single codebase, which includes the frontend, backend, and database layers. In this approach, all the components of the application are tightly coupled, and changes to one component can impact the others. The codebase is deployed as a single unit to the server, and any updates or changes require redeploying the entire application.

With Jamstack, you separate the frontend, backend, and database layers. The front end is built using static site generators or frontend frameworks, while the backend and database are managed by third-party services or APIs. The resulting application is served as static files, which can be cached and served quickly.

Although the term Jamstack may not be as prevalent today, its foundational principles remain crucial in modern web development. Essentially, Jamstack is a delivery architecture that emphasizes prerendering pages whenever feasible, mainly relying on static site generation (SSG). In the 2024 Web Almanac's Jamstack chapter, three primary delivery architectures are highlighted:

1. Prerendered: Pages are built in advance and served as static files.
2. Hybrid: Combines static and dynamic pages, utilizing technologies like Incremental Static Regeneration (ISR) and Edge Functions to blur the lines between them.
3. Dynamic: Pages are generated on the server for each request.

Adopting a static-first approach has become more common, as increased static content typically leads to faster, more scalable, secure, and eco-friendly websites.

Prerendered and Hybrid architectures are on the rise, but they’re still relatively niche compared to the rest of the web.

Taking a Jamstack eCommerce approach allows you to generate super-fast pre-generated markup. JavaScript and product information from the Crystallize PIM API (for example) using React to pre-hydrate SSR pages delivered on edge is ideal for high performance and easy scalability.

For your customers, that means fast performance and better UX overall. For your business, that means higher click-through rates (revenue) and better search engine ranking.

To get you going more easily and faster with your business, we’ve made a couple of Jamstack ecommerce boilerplates here.