Why static React sites?

Before you get started with building static websites using Gatsby, let's set the context with a brief discussion on why you would want to do this. There are three key factors at play here —we'll go over each of them now.

Types of React apps

React has connotations with apps that are very interactive and with lively data that changes a lot. This might be true of some apps, perhaps even most apps, but there are still cases where the user is looking at static data—information that doesn't change or changes very infrequently.

Consider a blog. The typical flow is for an author to publish some content and then that content is served to anyone who visits the site, who can then view the content. The common case is that once the content is published, it stays the same, or, it stays static. The uncommon case is that the author makes updates to their post, but even then, this is an infrequent action. Now, think about your typical blog publishing platform. Every time a reader visits...