Pros and Cons of Jamstack in 2021

By Tomasz GrabskiMay 20, 2021

Introduction

You probably already know what is Jamstack, and you may wondering if Jamstack development is a great option for each and every online business. Although, we love to think that, we are also humble enough to admit it’s not entirely true.

No matter how many benefits of Jamstack you can find, there are still some disadvantages and limitations, especially for a specific kind of business.

So in order to help you make a calculation, we’ve gathered both pros and cons of using Jamstack based on a few different business models.

Let’s dive in!

Why use Jamstack?

If you are more of a business person, we recommend you to have a look at our Jamstack Guide for Business people, which will help you understand the basics.

Jamstack is literally full of great advantages and an idea to hire Jamstack developers can solve most of today’s modern online businesses’ problems related to speed, performance, and user experience.

Let’s go over them one by one:

Fast page load speed
It’s important not only to your visitors but also to Google. First, you may see that you stop losing clients, as a site performance is not the reason to leave it anymore.
Second, Google will add Core Web Vitals (new performance metrics) to the ranking signals in May 2021. Therefore, the website’s load speed will impact ranking positions tremendously in the near future.

SEO efficiency
Jamstack helps you rank higher because of static pages, which are fast, light, and easy to scan by search engine crawlers.
Google rewards these things with higher positions in search results, and that means you are becoming more competitive, and getting more people that are actually searching for you.

Great custom user experience
Thanks to connecting the Jamstack website with a headless CMS, you can make your best ideas happen easier than ever. You can have a design you want without compromising speed, performance, or features you always wanted to use.

Future-proof
Technology is constantly changing and evolving and using Jamstack can help you stay ahead of the competition. Becoming innovative gives you the comfort of not worrying about your website in years to come.

Works on any device
Jamstack websites work perfectly on any device and any screen size. Therefore, you will convert both desktop and mobile users.

Safety
As Jamstack sites don’t have a direct connection to the database, user data, or other sensitive information, there is no gap for hackers to be used. They are bulletproof.

Still not sure if Jamstack is a good choice for you?

Get to know various Jamstack Services

When to use Jamstack?

With Jamstack you can create almost any type of website, but like any other technology, it has some best use cases, and ones you may want to reconsider.

Among the best use cases, we can highlight:

Webshops – Jamstack gives you the possibility to create a unique user experience that’s also superfast and SEO friendly. It helps not only to engage customers but also to achieve higher Google ranks. In the end, it leads to higher conversion rates and more sales.
Custom landing pages – Jamstack makes the process of creating landing pages faster and easier thanks to reusable components. If the website is connected to the CMS like Sanity, you can build landing pages without involving a developer.
Software and SaaS – a website is like a business card. It’s usually the first point of contact with your customers. Thanks to Jamstack, you can make a great first impression thanks to custom design and a flawless user experience.

On top of that, if you hesitate if Jamstack is a good choice for you, this video may help you decide wheter you should use it or not.

youtube video about when to use and when not to use jamstack

Pros and cons of Jamstack

Now when we know what Jamstack is and what can you do with it, it’s time to go deeper and learn about the pros and cons of using it.

Pros of Jamstack 🤩

Why is Jamstack so loved by business owners, marketers, and developers?

How come it became one of the hottest technologies among webshops so rapidly?

Before we get to cons, to answer these questions, we gathered the most important pros of Jamstack and went a bit deeper into explaining them in detail.

Great and unique user experience = Higher conversion rate

sBuilding a custom layout can help you stand out from the websites and webshops that look similar. It’s not only about making a great first impression that potential customers get.

It’s also about designing and modifying the customer journey, so it’s simple, pleasant, and aligned with the customers’ needs and feedback. On top of that, Jamstack websites are loading in the blink of an eye.

On top of that, you build a website (or webshop) just the way you want without affecting the performance or page load speed negatively.

Additionally, be aware that user experience is important also from Google’s perspective. As of May 2021 it will be even more important because Core Web Vitals will officially become ranking signals.

Naturally, all these things can translate into fewer errors, and ultimately, a higher conversion rate.

SEO efficiency = Higher organic traffic

Out of all the pros and cons of Jamstack, one seems to be extremely important if it comes to doing business online.

SEO efficiency.

Because, why not aiming for the highest Google rankings possible?

It will lead to higher organic traffic and consequently – more leads. But of course, it won’t be possible without a great SEO optimization.

And yes – Jamstack websites are making your SEO efforts much easier to execute.

It’s because they are fast, light, and easy to scan, and Google rewards them with higher rankings.

Jamstack also means full control over the content and structure of the website, and that’s a crucial part of SEO. Jamstack makes it easy to add custom metadata like page titles, meta descriptions, or alt text, which is a huge help for Google crawlers to read and index your website’s content.

SEO efficiency also means high page load speed, and Jamstack websites are blazingly fast.

Speed and performance = Better user experience

As we said, Jamstack websites load in a blink of an eye.

Now, let’s have a look at how we buy online.

47 percent of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less
40 percent of consumers will wait no more than three seconds for a web page to render before abandoning the site.
52 percent of online shoppers stated that quick page loading is important to their site loyalty

And on top of that, Google states that:

53% of mobile users abandon sites that take over 3 seconds to load

In other words, it’s about time to stop annoying visitors with low performance, so they can just press the buying button without any errors coming out.

And – as already mentioned – page load speed is an important factor when it comes to ranking in Google and a crucial element of user experience.

In Jamstack, high performance is ensured thanks to using Content Delivery Network.

Readiness for high traffic = Be always online

Increasing traffic – especially traffic spikes – might be a problem for popular websites and some additional work is required to cope with that.

On the contrary, Jamstack helps with caching pages by default – without requiring additional effort.

Jamstack sites are served entirely from Content Delivery Network (CDN), and there is no need for additional logic or workflow.

Additionally, CDN means simpler deployments, built-in redundancy and awesome load capacity.

Omnichannel approach = Selling everywhere

More and more people are browsing the Internet using their mobile devices. In fact, more than half of the web traffic comes from smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. Because of that, you need to adapt an omnichannel approach.

As Jamstack websites (and webshops) work well on devices of any size or screen resolution, you can convert any visitor.

Future-proofness = Ability to move and change fast

Agility should be an important factor when choosing the technology to build a website or webshop.

You may already know that continuous improvements are essential to generate traffic, leads, and revenue.

But to make it happen, marketers and business owners need to have the possibility to edit and implement new features and functionalities with ease.

Luckily, thanks to Jamstack, you can become future-proof too.

On top of that, you won’t have to build a new website in two years, as popularity and usage of Jamstack architecture seems to be only increasing with time.

Headless integration = Avoiding limitations

Speaking of becoming a future-proof business – headless approach is the future.

If you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s a new way of improving integration with eCommerce platforms or Content Management Systems. It allows you to avoid editing limitations and design your website or webshop just the way you want. It also enhances your performance and SEO efforts.

Greater security = Peace of mind

Vulnerability of traditional server-side and CMS applications results from the usage of different APIs and services. And that’s why their owners need to take care of them daily.

However, such a risk doesn’t apply to static websites as they are built on read-only files. Therefore, there is no direct connection between such websites and any database or server-side software.

As a result, there are no vulnerabilities that hackers may use to possess sensitive data or other information.

High availability of developers = Easier scalability

Developers tend to choose hot technologies with the foreseeable future, and Jamstack has a bright future.

Its popularity and usage is only increasing so far and that’s why there are many Jamstack developers you can choose from. If you want to outsource your next project or start building an in-house Jamstack team, you will probably have a better chance to get a talented people on board.

Cheap and portable hosting = More money to spend elsewhere

Static sites are lightweight so hosting them is much cheaper (or even free!) than hosting dynamic sites. Additionally, you can choose any hosting and change it effortlessly.

Maintainability = More time for other tasks

Days of keeping an eye on the website 24/7 are over as Jamstack sites don’t need that much attention.

Most of the important work was done during the development process, and because of that, the necessity of server patching, updating and maintaining practically vanishes.

Ability to create new pages easily = More independence

Pre-made components and features drastically cut the development time. For example, if you have some coding knowledge, you can build pages or landing pages without asking developers for help.

Pros of Jamstack for eCommerce 🛒

Of course, having a performant website is one thing, but having a web shop is a different business.

Some of the pros and cons of Jamstack are similar to any industry, but let’s review them from an eCommerce perspective.

Selling products everywhere = Higher revenue

Using Jamstack to build webshop means decoupling the front-end and the back-end. It gives you a total freedom of displaying products on multiple platforms like Amazon or Facebook,

Another advantage of Jamstack for eCommerce is the possibility to manage all digital sales channels in one place.

Improved time to market = Money savings

Reusable components boost the development process which means improved time to market. Also, developing new features or implementing changes is faster in Jamstack because it makes it possible to work on front-end and back-end layers separately.

That approach is definitely faster than building everything from scratch.

Developer experience = Faster development

Developer experience has even more benefits than improved time to market. It gives developers the possibility to use APIs and rely on eCommerce solutions like Shopify.

This way, they don’t have to take care of everything – they can focus mainly on the front-end layer. It cuts not only development time but also its cost.

Unlimited customization = Greater user experience

You can use Jamstack to build a truly custom storefront, so you can provide a unique shopping experience for your customers. It also helps you to truly stand out from your competition as your store won’t look like thousands of stores.

Beside the typical pros and cons of Jamstack for eCommerce, we can highlight also some other benefits, like:

You can add new customer touchpoints (points where customers meet brand) without the necessity of using additional software.
You can build a custom storefront or PWA based on BigCommerce, Shopify or some other eCommerce platform.
JavaScript SDKs like those provided by Shopify will help you to create a user-friendly shopping experience.
If you have more than one customer group, you can design a unique experience for each one of them.

Cons of Jamstack 😞

As we said, Jamstack also has its cons, and not everyone can find it useful.

First of all, building a Jamstack website comes with a price and that may not be the best option for people that don’t have to rely on their website performance so much.

For example, small companies using their website only to be a form of “digital business card”. Or companies that don’t really need to generate huge traffic and be at the top of Google ranks.

In other words, companies that doesn’t treat their website as a primary source of generating new business.

It may appear that it’s much better to use something cheaper, like WordPress only and still get good results, as with Jamstack:

Coding may be required – the ease of making updates to your website or landing pages depends on the way they were developed. In some cases, you will need the help of a qualified developer if you don’t have coding knowledge.

Not fully plugin-friendly – in many cases, the cost of great user experience and customization freedom is that you won’t be able to use plugins. There is an exception, though – Gatsby.

Not dynamic-friendly – static pages (aka Jamstack pages) are perfect for plain text and images. If you want to have any dynamic features on your website, it will demand more effort on your side. It’s because dynamic features are not part of default Jamstack architecture.

Generating preview takes time – as a static page, you need to “build” it each time you make a change, so in case of bigger websites it can be a true pain.