Dev log //HCAZ

Like many developers who have spent over 15 years working with PHP, I have watched the frontend landscape shift dramatically. There is always a new “must-use” framework, and lately, the static site generation (SSG) space has been dominated by JavaScript solutions like Astro, Next.js, or Gatsby.

For a long time, I felt the pressure to jump ship. If I wanted the speed and security of a static site, I assumed I had to write it in JavaScript. But when I actually sat down to build my latest project, I realized something important: I didn't want to learn a whole new ecosystem just to output HTML. I wanted to use the tools I have mastered over the last decade and a half.

That is when I found Jigsaw.

The Comfort of “Home”

As a Laravel developer, my brain is wired for Blade templating. It is efficient, expressive, and I know it inside out. Switching to a JS-based generator meant fighting against muscle memory. I would have to relearn how to loop through data, how to structure partials, and how to handle logic in the view layer.

Jigsaw changed that equation. It is a framework for building static sites using the exact same tools I use for complex web applications.

The biggest win for me was Blade. Being able to use Blade syntax for a static site felt like a cheat code. I could build layouts, components, and includes exactly how I would in a full Laravel app, but without the complexity of a full backend. I wasn't fighting the tool; I was just writing code.

Simplicity in Deployment

The other major appeal of going static is the deployment story.

When running a traditional PHP application, you have to worry about the overhead. You need to manage PHP-FPM, configure Nginx or Apache correctly, worry about database connections, and keep everything patched.

With a static site generated by Jigsaw, all that overhead vanishes. The build process runs locally, and the output is just simple HTML, CSS, and assets.

This makes hosting incredibly simple. I don't need a complex server stack. I can throw the files into an S3 bucket or serve them with Caddy. Caddy is particularly great here because it handles SSL automatically and serves static files with zero fuss. It is “set and forget” infrastructure, which is exactly what I need when I am juggling multiple projects.

Use What You Know

There is a tendency in our industry to chase the newest shiny object. While Astro and others are fantastic tools, they weren't the right tools for me.

Choosing Jigsaw wasn't about stubbornness. It was about pragmatism. By sticking to PHP and Blade, I removed the cognitive load of learning a new syntax and focused purely on shipping the content.

If you are a PHP veteran looking at the static site world and feeling out of place, look at Jigsaw. You don't have to leave your skills at the door to build modern, fast websites.