Getting startedWebsite with admin panel
Static website vs a website you can manage: which do you need?
“Static or dynamic?” is a question web developers ask. The question a business owner should ask is simpler: after this website is built, who can change it, and how? The answer decides whether you need a static website or a website you can manage yourself, sometimes called a website with an admin panel.
What “static” means
A static website is a set of finished pages. They are built once and served exactly as they are. That makes them fast, cheap to host and hard to break into, because there is very little behind them.
The catch is in the name. To change anything, someone has to edit the files and upload them again. In practice that someone is a developer.
What a website you can manage means
Here the content lives in a system with a login. You sign in, change a price or add a photo in a form, press save, and the website shows the change. No files, no developer.
There are two versions of this, and the difference matters:
- A self-managed system, such as a WordPress site on hosting you rent. You can change the content, but you, or someone you pay, are also responsible for the hosting, software updates, plug-ins, security and backups.
- A managed service. The provider looks after all the technical work. You look after the content. This is what Creatin Web is.
An honest comparison
| Static website | Self-managed system | Managed service | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost to build | Usually the lowest | Varies widely | Part of the yearly plan |
| Cost each year | Low hosting; changes billed as they come | Hosting, licences and maintenance | One renewal that includes upkeep |
| Changing content | Through a developer | Yourself | Yourself |
| Technical upkeep | Very little | Yours to arrange | The provider's job |
| Flexibility | Anything, if you pay for the work | Very high | Within what the service offers |
| Best for | Sites that rarely change | Teams with technical help on hand | Owners who want control without the technical work |
No column wins every row. A managed service is less flexible than a custom-built system: you get the features it offers, not anything you can imagine. For most small businesses that is a fair trade. For a business with unusual requirements it may not be.
When a static website is the right choice
- Your information really does stay the same for years: who you are, what you do, where to find you.
- You need a simple presence, perhaps a single page, on a small budget.
- You have a developer you trust who makes changes quickly.
If that describes you, a static site is a sensible, economical choice, and nobody should talk you out of it.
When you need a website you can manage
- Anything on the site has a date: notices, offers, events, admissions.
- You have a portfolio that grows: projects, products, photos.
- Your prices or availability change.
- Enquiries need to land somewhere several people can see and follow up.
- More than one person should be able to make updates.
A school, a resort, a builder and most shops are in this group.
The hidden cost of “just call the developer”
On paper, a static site with an occasional paid change is the cheapest option. In practice, the effort of asking is the problem. You need to write the request, send the photo, wait, check and remind. So the small changes don't get made. The offer stays up after it ends. The new project never appears.
The real price of a static website is not the hosting. It is every update you didn't make because it was a nuisance.
Five questions to decide
- How often will something on the site need to change: every week, every month, or once a year?
- Who will make the change, and do they have ten minutes or ten seconds?
- How quickly must a change appear?
- Do you want enquiries collected in one place, or is an email enough?
- If your developer became unavailable tomorrow, what would happen to the site?
If your answers are “rarely”, “my developer” and “no hurry”, go static. If they are “often”, “my staff” and “today”, you need a website you can manage.
Creatin Web is the managed kind: we design, build and host the site, and you run it from a dashboard and an Android app. The features page shows what that looks like, and the cost guide compares the yearly costs of each route.