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SSG

SSG (Static Site Generation) renders pages to plain HTML at build time. The output is a folder of static files servable from any web server or CDN. No database queries at request time, no server cost, no SSR latency.

Updated May 2026 · 4 min read
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Definition

SSG (Static Site Generation) renders pages to plain HTML at build time. The output is a folder of static files servable from any web server or CDN. No database queries at request time, no server cost, no SSR latency.

What it means

Build pipeline: source content (markdown, JSON, CMS) → generator (Hugo, Astro, Eleventy, Next.js export, Jekyll, Gatsby) → static HTML / CSS / JS files. Deploy: copy to any CDN-fronted static host (Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages, S3 + CloudFront). Subsequent navigation: prefetch links + client-side router give SPA-like UX while the underlying pages stay static. Modern variants: ISR (Incremental Static Regeneration — Next.js, Astro) lets you regenerate specific pages on a schedule or on-demand without a full rebuild; perfect for content that changes occasionally but doesn't need millisecond freshness.

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Why it matters

SSG is the right answer for: content-heavy sites (blogs, docs, tool catalogs, marketing sites), anything where pages don't change per-user, sites that need to handle traffic spikes cheaply (a CDN serves static files with infinite scale), and teams that want simplest deploys. It's NOT the right answer for: heavily personalized pages (use SSR), real-time data dashboards (use client-side fetching + SPA), and apps where build times matter — generating 10,000 pages takes minutes.

Frequently asked questions

SSG vs ISR vs SSR?

SSG: built once at deploy. ISR: built once but regenerable per page on a schedule or trigger. SSR: built every request. Most large sites mix all three: marketing pages SSG, dashboards SSR, occasionally-updated content ISR.

Best SSG framework in 2026?

Astro for content-heavy sites with islands of interactivity. Next.js (export mode) if you're already on Next. Hugo for blog-style content with fastest builds. 11ty (Eleventy) for minimal-config simple sites. SvelteKit's adapter-static is a strong choice if you're on Svelte.

What about huge sites?

ISR / on-demand revalidation is the answer. A site with 10k+ pages won't rebuild every page on every commit — ISR regenerates per-page on first hit after a content update.

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