Whilst browsing HackerNews i came across this: 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 on that particular content management system for over 10 years (yikes time goes fast).
WordPress is great but it does have a lot of moving parts and you’ve got take website security really seriously due to the way it works.
A WordPress site is a dynamic website which 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 make it hackable.
Also, to turn WordPress into a nice DJ site, you need a multitude of plugins and themes to provide certain functionality. However, every plug-in (and themes to a lesser extent) can also bring its own set of problems. They need updating (which can sometime break stuff), they can become abandoned and not 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 sites easier, but they have a lot of moving parts and possible ways into the site if badly configured.
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 a phrase. You’ve got no database, plugins, themes, PHP to piss around, 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, due to all the crap i on the mixes pages it runs a bit slow regarding page speed.
Anyway, i might 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. You might end up with a more stable and secure solution and a quick chat with an LLM should help with the install.