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Web publishing overview

This list is not comprehensive. There are many, many ways to build a web site. The goal of this document is to give a high-level overview of some common solutions seen by the California Office of Digital Innovation (ODI). There is no one-size-fits-all publishing architecture. Digital services teams should do their own research to find out what is right for their projects.

Plain HTML

Good for:
Teams with non-web software engineers
Simple websites that don’t need to be updated very often

Headless - Decoupled WordPress and/or Github + static site generation

Good for:
Teams with proficient web engineers with experience coding in several languages and across several platforms.
Projects with simple publishing needs.

Traditional WordPress

Good for:
Teams with one dedicated front end engineer with some WordPress experience.
Projects with complex publishing needs like scheduling and content moderation.

CAWeb Publishing

Good for:
Teams with no engineering staff.
Projects with complex publishing needs like scheduling and content moderation.

Comparison

Benefits
Item
Plain HTML
Decoupled WordPress + static site generation
Traditional WordPress
CAWeb Publishing Service
Accessibility
Blazing fast performance [1]
Real time preview
Multiple page templates
Control security and platform updates
Ability to change backend/CMS [2]
Maintenance and security handled by CDT/ODS
Extra secure front end
Highly reliable
Relatively cheap hosting
Out of the box preview
There are no rows in this table
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Challenges
Item
Plain HTML
Decoupled WordPress + static site generation
Traditional WordPress
CAWeb publishing service
Requires a full stack engineer
Requires an engineer or IT staff to make any changes to text, images, design, and layout
Can be challenging to add new page templates and layouts
Complex build process that requires senior web engineering skills
Long build times means previews are delayed by several minutes [3]
JavaScript and CSS changes must be made by uploading files via the WordPress UI
There are no rows in this table
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Resources

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https://caweb.cdt.ca.gov/faq-service-overview/
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https://cmassearch.azurewebsites.net/
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https://cdt.ca.gov/services/website-hosting/
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https://caweb.cdt.ca.gov/our-customers/
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Footnotes

[1] Performance scores can vary but typically static sites rank vary high. ODI’s static sites typically score 98-100 in Lighthouse.
[2] ODI has used GitHub instead of WordPress on several sites. This approach simplifies the engineering workload.
[3] There are some commercial products (Netlify, Vercel, etc.) that can speed up the build process.


Plain HTML
Headless - Decoupled WordPress and/or Github + static site generation
Traditional WordPress
CAWeb Publishing
Comparison
Benefits
Challenges
Resources
Footnotes
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