Whilst browsing HackerNews i came across: https://faircamp.org/ – a static website generator for creating Bandcamp style websites.
Obviously this website builder is primary aimed at music producers, but this app might be also be worth looking at if you’re looking to build a DJ site.
For those who don’t know, this DJ website (the one your reading now) uses WordPress. And I’ve been running this particular content management system for over 10+ years (yikes time goes fast).
WordPress is great but it does have a lot of moving parts. It needs various components to work, namely: a server running Nginx or Apache, a database (MySql, or MariaDb) and PHP. Each of these needs maintaining and if they’re badly configured they can break your website or in the worse cases introduce security risks.
Also, to turn WordPress into a nice DJ site, you need a multitude of plugins and themes to provide functionality. However, every plug-in (and themes to a lesser extent) can also bring with it it’s own set of problems. Plugins/themes need updating (which can sometimes break things), plugins can become abandoned (meaning they don’t receive valuable security updates), or in the worst cases they obtained by hackers and used as a way to take over websites.
That’s the trouble with systems like WordPress: they make building websites easy, but things can go wrong if you don’t know what you’re doing.
A system like FairCamp is different. It’s a static website generator. The webpages are generated elsewhere and then placed or uploaded to a server. Once on the server they’re usually fairly unwritable and far harder to hack. They’re kinda set in stone to use that phrase. You’ve got no database, plugins, themes, PHP to piss around with, and no admin backend on the web which could be hijacked. So all-in-all, a far more secure and faster setup.
The downside of static website generators is that you have to hand code everything. This is what’s always put me off about them, my coding skills are crap. However, now with the LLMs getting reasonably good at coding this might be less of an issue.
I am seriously thinking of testing this for the mixes section of my site as it would solve a few term headaches i have with part of the site.
FairCamp pretty much does everything i need for the mixes section, namely create download links, podcast links, and you can connect it to a newsletter service.
The other bonus is that static pages tend to run very fast, unlike my Mixes domain which runs a tad slow due to all the stuff i need on their for it to work.
Anyway, i might give FairCamp a test at some point in the future. So watch this space.
Lastly, if you’ve thinking of learning how to build a DJ site it might be worth considering it over WordPress. A quick chat with an LLM should help with you with the install and you might end up with a something more stable and secure solution than a WordPress site like mine. And you could always looks at something like Hugo if you want to start a music blog too.