TL;DR: JAMstack is a modern way to build fast, flexible websites using JavaScript, APIs, and Markup. It’s great for performance, SEO, and scaling—especially compared to old-school setups like WordPress.
What is JAMstack and Why Does It Matter?
As a UX designer familiar with tools like Figma, Framer, and WYSIWYG platforms, the term JAMstack didn’t mean much to me at first. But as a professional web developer who collaborates with marketing teams, I’ve become very familiar with JAMstack in a short time. It turns out many of the teams I work with are considering making the switch. So, what is JAMstack?
The JAM
We’re not talking about vibing to summer beats or the sweet spread you put on toast. In this case, JAM refers to three technologies that work together to form a high-performance web development stack:
JavaScript
JavaScript is a programming language that has been around for decades. Originally used to add interactivity to simple websites—like toggling a mobile menu—it has since matured into a powerful, full-stack language. Thanks to environments like Node.js, JavaScript can now run on servers and is used to deliver full websites and applications. In the JAMstack, JavaScript powers the dynamic aspects of your app, often running on a CDN or edge network, rather than traditional backend environments like SQL, Apache, or Python.
APIs
APIs can be tricky to grasp at first. Think of them as the middleman between your front end and your backend data source. To use a restaurant analogy: your web browser is the table, JavaScript is the waiter, and your database is the kitchen. The API is the service window connecting the waiter to the chef. The waiter (JavaScript) places an order (a request) through the service window (API), and the chef (database) sends the prepared dish (data) back to the waiter to serve.
Here’s another analogy: in the old days of telephony, you had operators connecting calls. APIs are like those operators, creating connections between separate systems. They’re not physical, but they enable communication between your user-facing interface (the “head”) and the backend system (the “body”).
Markup
Markup refers to HTML (HyperText Markup Language)—the skeleton of the web. Every site on the internet includes HTML in some form. It’s lightweight, easy for browsers to parse, and extremely SEO-friendly. Search engines like Google and Bing use it to crawl your content. The “M” in JAMstack emphasizes that pre-rendered HTML, often generated at build time, is a first-class citizen in this architecture.
What’s a Stack?
When developers or designers talk about a tech stack, we’re referring to the set of technologies that work together to build and run an application. For example, a typical WordPress stack includes PHP, HTML, CSS, and often older JavaScript libraries like jQuery. JAMstack, by contrast, uses modern tools designed to be modular, fast, and scalable.
Why Choose JAMstack Over Other Stacks?
JAMstack is fast, scalable, and secure in ways that traditional monolithic systems often are not. Let’s continue with the restaurant metaphor.
As a company grows, they may need to expand their website to support e-commerce, online learning, user accounts, and more. In traditional stacks like WordPress, everything is tightly coupled. It’s like having one restaurant where the kitchen keeps expanding, but the dining room stays the same size. Eventually, no matter how efficient the kitchen is, the restaurant can’t serve more customers effectively. Wait times increase, service suffers, and customers leave.
JAMstack decouples the front end (dining room) from the backend (kitchen). It allows multiple “restaurants” to pull from one highly optimized, centralized kitchen. This results in faster load times, better scalability, and a superior user experience.
For marketing teams, JAMstack is especially powerful because pre-rendered markup ensures excellent SEO performance.
Understanding Rendering
Rendering refers to how content is processed and displayed in the browser. There are three common rendering strategies:
1. Client-Side Rendering (CSR)
In CSR, the browser (your device) is responsible for assembling the website. The server sends a bundle of code, and your browser “unpacks” it to build the page. This is commonly used for apps like Netflix or Spotify, where the content is personalized for each user. One downside is the slight delay before content appears—often handled with skeleton screens or loading animations.
2. Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
Here, the server assembles the page before sending it to the browser. This approach is ideal for content that changes frequently and should reflect the latest data for all users—like news articles or product availability. SSR also improves SEO since the full content is delivered immediately to bots and users alike.
3. Static Site Generation (SSG)
SSG builds pages at deploy time, creating fully rendered HTML files that are served via a CDN. This is how platforms like WordPress or Squarespace traditionally work. It’s great for sites with stable content—such as blogs, landing pages, or company info pages—where updates are infrequent or scheduled.
How Does All This JAM?
Understanding rendering methods helps you choose the right architecture. Here’s a simplified guide:
- E-commerce site? Use a framework like Next.js that supports SSR.
- Customized app per user? Use React or Angular with CSR.
- Marketing website or blog? Use an SSG like Astro or 11ty.
As a developer, knowing these fundamentals empowers you to build flexible, high-performance solutions—and help clients make the right choices from day one.
Final Thoughts
JAMstack isn’t just a buzzword. It’s a modern approach to web development that offers clear benefits in speed, scalability, SEO, and developer experience. Whether you’re building for startups or enterprise clients, understanding JAMstack can help you build smarter and faster.