WP2Static deploying to a free Netlify account, or even just deploying to a cheap VPS (DigitalOcean, Linode, Hetzner Cloud etc) is a terrific solution for 95% of WordPress sites. If your site is not doing something that absolutely needs to be generated dynamically, such as an ecommerce cart, the advantages of going static, while retaining the familiar WordPress interface, are undeniable.

This is a way to escape the hosting industry, which has always been a marketing-driven scam, so, it makes zero sense to tie your WordPress-to-static generation to the new generation of “static hosts”. Even if you are part of what this article calls “the less technical crowd”, it is worth investing an hour into getting to grips with a tool such as WP2Static.

Again, if your site is a suitable candidate for being static, generating a static version with WP2Static is probably a lot easier than you imagine. I tend to design sites on my own laptop, using Local by Flywheel to host them during the design process. I install the WP2Static plugin and enter my Netlify credentials. When I am happy with the design, I deploy to Netlify and shut down my locally-running site until I want to make changes again.

If I didn’t want to run WordPress on my laptop, I would fire up a 1-Click instance of WordPress on DigitalOcean (or Linode, or Vultr etc) for less than one cent per hour. Again, once I am happy with the design, I use WP2Static to deploy to Netlify, download a backup of the site, and destroy the VPS – no need to keep paying for it. If I want to edit the site again in the future, I simply fire up another VPS and re-install from the backup.

All the JAMstack stuff is wonderful but don’t let it distract you from the beautiful simplicity and logic of using WordPress to create static sites. You do not need some expensive host, spewing marketing BS, to gain all the speed, security and zero-maintenance benefits of static. Install WP2Static and cheerfully wave goodbye to the middlemen.