The ultimate list of services for static websites

Mike Neumegen

12 December 2014 | 3 mins

Update (2021): Are you interested in pushing the boundaries of your Jamstack websites? Browse our new curated lists of Jamstack tools, and compare the features that matter to you.

Think you need a backend? Think again. With the huge number of plugins, apps and services you can drop into static sites, there’s not a lot you can’t do.

There’s no hiding it, we love static websites. They’re simple, easy to maintain and super fast. Not everyone shares our slightly obsessive point of view though. The main reasons we hear for not using static websites are:

Non-technical users can’t update static websites easily. This is a problem we’re working hard to solve at CloudCannon.
I can’t do this without a backend. With the huge number of apps and services you can drop into static websites there’s actually not a lot you can’t do with static websites.

Today I’m rounding up the best of these services.

Newsletters

Capture email addresses and send periodic newsletters.

Community

Build communities by allowing your visitors to post comments on your website.

Contact Forms

Add contact forms without having to do any backend coding.

Live Chat

Chat directly with visitors.

E-Commerce

Simple e-commerce is possible on static websites.

Surveys

Get feedback by adding a survey to your site.

Search

Full search capability for static websites.

Backends

Even full backends with authentication are available for static websites.

Analytics

Analyse what visitors are doing on your website.

Embeddable Content

Content you can drop into your static websites.

Frontend error trackers

As you add more JavaScript to your website it's worth tracking any errors that arise.

This is only scratching the surface of the apps and services available for static websites. Recently, we’ve created the Jamstack Ecosystem, a curated list of tools and services for Jamstack projects so that you can compare the features that matter to you.