Netlify is amazing at static file hosting, but it’s really so much more than that. You can build any sort of website, even highly dynamic apps, with the Jamstack approach and static file hosting at the core.
Say you want to build a TODO app with users. Those users will need to sign up and log in. Can’t do that with a static site, right? You can, actually. Netlify helps with Netlify Identity, a robust offering they’ve had for years. Enabling it is just a few clicks in the admin UI, and they even provide auth widgets so you have to build precious little to get this working.
Now you’ve got a website with authentication, great! But how do you keep going with your TODO app? You’ll need some kind of cloud storage for the data on your user’s lists. For that, you’ll have to reach outside of Netlify to find a cloud storage provider you like. Netlify has had a first-class integration with Fauna for years, so that’s a good choice.
You’ll need to communicate with Fauna, of course, and being a static site, JavaScript is how that’s going to work. Fortunately, your client-side JavaScript can communicate with your own server-side JavaScript that Netlify helps with, which is called Netlify Functions. That’s right, Netlify helps you build/deploy Lambda functions. This means you can actually have the Lambda functions do the communicating with Faunda, keeping your API keys safe.
Those are the building blocks. This is a well-worn approach, and really at the heart of Jamstack. Need a head start? Netlify has templates for this kind of thing. Here are some examples with this approach in mind: netlify-fauna-todo-app and netlify-faunadb-example. We even have a tutorial that covers that. And there’s a one-minute video demo:
There you have it, a website that is every bit as dynamic as something you’d build with a traditional server. Only now, you’re building with Netlify meaning you get so many other advantages, like the fact that you’re deploying from commits to a Git repository and getting build previews, and every other amazing feature Netlify offers.