It should be pretty easy to auto-generate static sites from wordpress.
Shifter and HardyPress already do so. That gets you all the advantages of static sites, combined with all the advantages of WordPress(ecosystem, tools, affordable labor, easy to use by clients).
Their only major limitation is that they generate/"compile" the whole site, and this takes time.
But that seems solvable by caching(in most cases) and by scaling(which may be easy with serverless). I think it's just a matter of time.
A lot of WP features do not work in this case. The infra need to get this working is also not simple. And finally the code produced to get this to work (the mess of "hooks" called filters in WP iirc) does not at all resemble the clean React code base of my Gatsby website project.
I argue maintainability is the main reason for me to choose Gatsby over WP for projects where the choice makes sense.
Most WordPress plugins work with a statically generated WP site. For functionality that generally demands db communication, there are many services that have been created for use on static sites that can be used on WP too. We created a static tools directory for our users on Strattic so that they can easily find those types of services when moving their sites to Strattic, or building for Strattic: https://www.strattic.com/static-tools/
Sure, database driven WP features, don't work - As they should.
You just need to select your plugins from a smaller set, and use external services like disqus for database based service.
And i think with time that thinking could lead to a set of plugins with good security through isolation.
As for hosting complexity - for many sites, this could be hidden from the developer and the client.
And regarding code complexity - how often are custom wordpress plugins or themes(without a site builder) required ? and how much developer time does it take ?
Interesting, however the price per month to have a useful site running is ~$20/month; there are plenty of free static hosting solutions for Gatsby, which are both fast and quite easy to use.
Shifter and HardyPress already do so. That gets you all the advantages of static sites, combined with all the advantages of WordPress(ecosystem, tools, affordable labor, easy to use by clients).
Their only major limitation is that they generate/"compile" the whole site, and this takes time.
But that seems solvable by caching(in most cases) and by scaling(which may be easy with serverless). I think it's just a matter of time.