Netlify

the new kid on the block.

24 Mar 2023

Deployment time with Github Pages has ballooned up to 5-10mns - this is with 700+ pages & includes large folders like /media and /images.

See Hosting my static website(s) with Github Pages

Testing Netlify as potential replacement.

Potential benefits of using Netlify vs Github Pages

  • faster deployment time
  • better website perfomance / optimisation
  • better image handling in combination with Imagekit ImageKit
  • private repo support

Setup

From Netlify, you can add Github repos to fetch/deploy from.

This installs Netlify as a 3rd party app on Github:

netlify/netlify-github-install.jpg

Basic settings - only access rights:

netlify/netlify-github-settings.jpg

Tests

from same repo as current Github Pages repo

I setup a test app fetching from same Github repo as Github Pages (ie in parallel, for side-by-side comparison):

netlify/230324-netlify-deploys.jpg

vs same Github Pages deployments:

netlify/230324-github-pages-deploy-comparison.jpg

with lightweight test repo

Using a test repo with only HTML & index files (no images/media) - 40Mb - I get:

  • 1mn11s deployment time on Github Pages
  • 18s deployment time on Netlify

netlify/230324-0712-netlify-test-lightweight-repo.jpg

re-adding entire repo to lightweight test repo

side-by-side, from same push:

  • 35s with Netlify
  • 5mns55s with Github Pages

😳

netlify/230324-0732-netlify-github-pages-side-by-side.jpg

next steps

Potential way to go would be:

  • Netlify for core files (HTML, CSS, JS, index files)
  • Images handled separately? Potentially ImageKit ImageKit

Benefit of Netlify would also mean:
- using a private repo, so hidden folders remain hidden
- using their image capabilities & CDN? (to explore)

links

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