Why this VPS also has a static site

September 8, 2026

Most of what’s running on this VPS — WordPress, Ghost, GitLab, Snipe-IT, Invoice Ninja — is a dynamic application: something generates HTML on every request, usually backed by a database.

A static site is the opposite approach: the HTML is generated once, ahead of time, and the server’s only job afterward is to hand out files. That trade-off is a good fit whenever content doesn’t change on every request — a personal page, documentation, a status page, or a blog that isn’t updated dozens of times a day.

The practical upshot for this container specifically:

• No PHP-FPM, no database connection, no application runtime to keep patched — the only thing serving traffic is nginx.
• Rebuilding the site is a single docker compose build — there’s no migration step, no schema to worry about.
• It’s the lightest container on this VPS by a wide margin.