Static vs Dynamic Websites: Features, Costs, and Best Uses

Starting out to build a website as a developer, you will come across these two terminologies: Static and dynamic.

Static and dynamic websites are basically the two main types of websites, they describe the different types of websites you are developing and each determines the amount of code you need to write either to add interactivity or not.

In this article, we are going to be looking at the difference between a static and dynamic website, We will give you practical examples of each of the websites and also look at some points to enable you to choose which is better when developing a website.

Before we delve in, let’s clear the air on what static and dynamic websites are:

It is the most basic type of website which is developed using plain HTML code ( sometimes called a flat page or a stationary page). It doesn’t require server-side scripting, just client-side like HTML and CSS.

When it comes to interactivity, static websites do not involve any interactivity features except for interactivity with hyperlinks, images, or graphics.

Generally, static websites are those websites where the content remains unchanged and any changes, additions, deletions, etc. we want to make to the contents can only be changed from the source code.

Every content on a static website is transferred to the user in exactly the form stored on the web server, which automatically displays the contents in the same format to every user who visits the webpage.

The major examples of static websites are as follows:

• Blog websites

• A website that involves developing Cache

• Website presentation

• Landing pages

• Documentation

• Communication cache-scrapping buffer

• Forms

• Newsletter Contents

A static website is composed of texts, images, and multimedia elements that contain selected content created using HTML and CSS.

>They do not require much coding and technical knowledge and no special software or programming skills.

When it comes to a simple static website, each user sees the same design and text every time he/she visits the site until the developer changes the source code.

Dynamic Websites are sites that display different types of content each time a user visits the site. When a user visits the site, the contents are displayed differently for each viewer depending on demographics, time of day, location, language settings, and so on.

Dynamic websites are more functional and give the user more interactivity.

Dynamic sites create content at run time. When a client requests a web page, the server processes that request and provides the web page in response. Dynamic sites also communicate with the background database. Dynamic sites that access database data are also called database-based sites.

E-commerce sites and social media networking sites are two examples of dynamic websites.

To be able to develop a dynamic site, you need to have knowledge of server-side scripting languages such as PHP, JavaScript, JSP, ASP, etc. Dynamic sites generate content that changes each time a user visits, so it requires more than just client-side scripting.

When a user visits a web page, the code is parsed on the webserver and the resulting HTML page is displayed on the client’s web browser. They use a combination of server-side and client-side scripting to generate dynamic content.

• E-commerce sites like Amazon, eBay, Netflix, etc.

• Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

From this article, we’ve been able to distinguish between static and dynamic websites. A static website is a basic website with fixed content, while dynamic websites are websites that provide different content according to the user’s requirements.

Each of the websites fits for a different purpose, so the purpose of your content will determine the kind of site to go for. If you're looking for something affordable, easier to develop, and where the users won’t have any interactivity then you can go for a static website, but if you’re looking for something more advanced that gives users more interactivity go for the dynamic website.