Simplystatic

Generating the static site is the easy part: publishing it every time is the work

The idea of turning WordPress into static HTML is grasped immediately and it is an excellent one: if what is published are files, almost everything that gets attacked in a WordPress disappears, because nothing is left running in public view.

What people discover when they try it is that generating is not the problem. The problem is the daily routine: you fix a typo on one page and the whole site has to be regenerated, the package downloaded, uploaded to wherever it goes and checked for breakage. The first time is interesting; by the fifth it does not get done, and the static site goes stale.

That is where the Pro version changes matters: it turns all that into an automatic flow.

What the official Simply Static Pro licence covers

The Pro features activated, the developer's updates while the licence is current and their support. The GPLClub team leaves the activation ready on your domain.

What the Pro version adds

• Direct deployment to Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel, BunnyCDN, Amazon S3 or a server over SFTP, with nothing downloaded or uploaded by hand.
• Updating a single page instead of regenerating the whole site, which on a large site is the difference between publishing in seconds or in half an hour.
• Forms and search that keep working with no server behind them, the classic problem of any static site.
• Command line, for generating and deploying from a script.
• Minification and image optimisation, plus multilingual sites.

When it pays

If you publish often. The more the site gets touched, the more not repeating the ritual shows: it is exactly what keeps the static version alive.

If security is the reason. Institutional sites, campaigns and projects that have to withstand spikes without frights: nothing to execute means very little to watch.

If your site depends on live features (cart, members' area, real-time comments), the static road is not yours, or will be only for part of the site.

Members have Simply Static Pro in the catalogue to try before deciding.

About licensing and the GPL

The code is distributed under the GPL licence and its use is free. Updates, support and activation against the developer's servers are separate services contracted with them. They are not the same thing, and buying one is not buying the other.