Static and Dynamic Websites

The most important differentiator between the two is if a site's content is genrated by a database or not. This is a key difference because it causes a major change in the way the site is designed, modified and maintained. When creating a new site, this is one of the first decisions that should be made.

In reality, a site can have both static and dynamic pages. This might have happened if an older site was updated with new content, for instance to add a blog. A dynamic site can generate the equivalent of static pages, but if their content comes from a database, I consider them dynamic.

Static Pages

Static pages have content that does not easily change. That is not to say that it cannot change, just that it can take a significant amount of work to change it. An example of a typical static page would be an About Us page that just shows a company's phone number, address and maybe a map. Others would be privacy policies and Terms of Service.

A static page does not need to be generated only with hard-coded HTML as some sites have suggested. It can be created with PHP and include CSS style sheets. It can even have forms that can be filled out, for instance to request information from a contact page. But that contact information won't be put into a database, it will just be used to, for instance, generate an email and then be deleted.

An advantage to static websites is that they can usually be designed much more rapidly that dynamic ones. They also don't take as much processing power or storage for the web server to create the pages.

Dynamic Pages

Dynamic pages have content that frequently changes. One example would be taking what was the static About Us page described above and adding information about current world news or a summary of the site's most recent blog entries.

These changing pages draw their information from databases that retrieve the current desired information as the page is built.

Dynamic pages are usually designed using a Content Management System (CMS), such as Drupal. This allows using a well tested framework to start the design. It can also be configured to allow designated users to modify some of the content while not requiring them to learn much, if anything, about how to code the website.

Using a CMS doesn't solve everything. You will still need to learn how to interact with the CMS to add content and make changes. At some point, the entire CMS may need to be upgraded, which may not be easy. Backups need to be done, but now it's no longer a matter of just copying all the files on your site — the database needs to be backed up as well.

Which Way Is Best?

First, look at how often you site is going to change. If it is frequent, you will almost certainly want a dynamic site. Sites that want a lot of dynamic features such as using RSS feeds will also benefit from a dynamic approach. Frameworks exist that can vastly simplify adding features like that.

The downside to the dynamic approach is a longer and more costly development time. Your web host will need to support the requirements of a dynamic site, although this is rarely an issue. Although it is easier for you to make changes to the site, you will still need to learn some technical things, as well as take care of regular backups. Frequent backups aren't an issue if the content isn't changing, no matter if your site is static or dynamic, but they still must be done after any significant change.