ldstephens

RE: Why Do You Need Big Tech for Your SSG? | Kev Quirk

Kev

A look at why small, personal websites don’t need big-tech static hosting, and how a simple local build and rsync workflow gives you faster deploys, more control, and far fewer dependencies.

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It got me thinking about my fellow small-web compatriots, their SSG workflows, and why on earth so many rely on services like Cloudflare Pages and Netlify. For personal sites it feels incredibly wasteful: you’re spinning up a VM, building your site, pushing the result to their platform, then tearing the VM down again.

Why not just build the site on your local machine? You’re not beholden to anyone, and you can host your site anywhere you like.

Hey friends, Kev recently kicked off a fun debate after suggesting we ditch the Netlify/Cloudflare + GitHub workflow and go to a local builds with an rsync deploy to a self-managed VPS. His pitch was all about control, speed, and breaking free from Big Tech.

Curious, I dug into his setup (with a little help from Gemini) to see if any of it made sense for me.

I get the appeal. Having total control over your own corner of the web is tempting, especially when you’re running a simple 11ty static site like mine.

But after looking at the numbers and comparing the workflows, my answer is: thanks, but no thanks it’s not for me.

The Cost vs. Control Trade-Off

My setup is simple: GitHub + Netlify’s free Starter Plan.

  1. Cost: I pay nothing for hosting. My only bill is the domain.
  2. Effort: Deployment is brain-off. I push to Git, and Netlify handles the build, security, updates, uptime—everything.

Kev’s VPS setup gives him more control, sure, but it also adds a monthly hosting fee (even cheap is still a few bucks) and basically turns him into a sysadmin. Now he’s responsible for OS patches, web server configs, and all the stuff Netlify does for me automatically.

My site uses about 1 GB of Netlify’s 100 GB free monthly allowance. So switching to “save money” just doesn’t hold up.

Redirects

Kev mentioned dealing with a “metric tonne” of them in a messy, server-specific .htaccess file. No thanks.

On Netlify, I just add a few lines to my clean little netlify.toml and everything works. If I moved to a pure storage CDN, I’d run into the same headache he did.

Verdict

If you're running a complex site or you're philosophically opposed to big platforms, a VPS + rsync pipeline might be worth it. And if you've got the technical skills for that kind of setup, like Kev, it can make even more sense. I don't have those skills, so it's not a path that fits me. For my tiny, low-traffic static site, the convenience, zero cost, and redirect handling of GitHub + Netlify are hard to beat.

What about you? Are you on a self-managed VPS or sticking with modern static hosting?