Starting today there is a single source of truth for all things Gatsby: I am thrilled to unveil the new Gatsbyjs.com. We built this unified site to bring the open source Gatsby (.org) and the Gatsby, Inc. (.com) sites together in a single domain. Now, all users are set up for success through one consolidated resource — no matter if using open-source Gatsby to create their sites, or Gatsby Cloud to build and deploy them.
This unification initiative evolved because Gatsby users too often ended up split between two separate domains, with two separate “Get Started” user journeys. Leaving them wondering, when searching for documentation and support, whether they should refer to the .com vs .org content. It makes sense that all Gatsby users should be able to navigate to a single destination and quickly surface the desired information, tutorials, and case studies.
Ultimately, we want for there to be one Gatsby user on a unified happy path from creation to deployment. Directly connecting the dots of building inherently fast, scalable and secure sites with Gatsby open source and deploying at their fullest potential on Gatsby Cloud. This, after all, is how we think about Gatsby internally. And it is also how we’re planning our upcoming roadmap, which we are super excited to share with you today.
Mapping Gatsby’s Near Future
Gatsby was born open source (and open source we shall always be).
At our core, we are proud stewards of the open source community. Part of that philosophy is sharing our vision for the future of Gatsby with the contributors and users who helped us build this incredible ecosystem. We have been working hard to define a roadmap setting paths for both Gatsby OS and Gatsby Cloud, and we are excited to share that work with you today.
Right now, the surface area of things you need to know to be competent with Gatsby is still quite large: React, GraphQL, our plugin architecture. We want to make Gatsby more approachable for users who aren’t comfortable on the command line, for those new to front end development — and also any developer who just wants to skip tedious config and set up tasks. This is why the Gatsby product roadmap in the coming months is focused on providing low code avenues, backed by infrastructure-as-code style automation and seriously enhanced performance.
Gatsby is reaching critical mass. We spent our first five years focused on speed, which culminated in the launch of Incremental Builds earlier this year. Now that we’ve succeeded in making Gatsby sites up to 1000x faster, we are now focusing on a new goal: making Gatsby equally easier to use. For end users, we 1000x the web browsing experience. For content editors we will 1000x the publishing experience. And for web developers we’re going to 1000x the development experience.
Our goal is blatantly ambitious: Gatsby is defining next-generation web development itself, to become the standard for how the web is built. As evidence we present our roadmap, a view of some of the many things we are releasing over the next six weeks as we work to achieve this.
Some key highlights to look forward to:
- New tools and features in Gatsby Open Source
- Enhanced performance and new services in Gatsby Cloud
- A brand new Gatsby Cloud pricing plan, including (as always) a robust free tier
What’s coming in Gatsby Open Source
We’re working hard to improve a developer’s first day experience with Gatsby, as well as improve the everyday developer experience of Gatsby Open Source. Below are just a few of the improvements we’re working on in the coming weeks.
- Gatsby Recipes (Alpha 2 just released 08/04)
Like WordPress, we are aiming for Gatsby to have its own famous 5 minute install. Whatever combination of resources your site needs, from npm packages to Gatsby plugins to external cloud services, Recipes will provision and configure it for you, automatically, in a few short minutes.
View the RFC on GitHub - Gatsby Admin
A new UI for building and managing your Gatsby site, Admin lets you manage your installed plugins, themes, site metadata and more — all without touching your code editor. This visual editor makes Gatsby configuration much friendlier to someone who is new to Gatsby, or even an experienced developer wanting a simpler, more intuitive tool for managing their Gatsby site. Admin also acts as an interface for using Recipes to automate setup for a new Gatsby site including installing plugins, routing and other configuration chores.
View the RFC on GitHub - Gatsby Desktop
A native Gatsby application that lives in the menu bar and performs common development functionality without needing to use the CLI. Gatsby Desktop is an end-to-end management tool for managing your collection of local Gatsby sites, as well as spinning up new sites.
Check out the RFC on GitHub - File-system based routing
Our new API unifies routing within the pages directory. Now you can create routes that take parameters as well as client-only routes for apps — so common patterns like creating pages for each blog post are greatly simplified. It’s now much easier to see at a glance what routes your site has, and the new page APIs are also much faster for incremental builds. On our larger benchmark sites, upon switching to the new APIs, we saw from 10-30% decrease in build times!
Check out the RFC on GitHub - So Many Other Great Things
We’re also shipping a lot of other amazing things on the near horizon for Gatsby Open Source. Here is a very quick (and far from complete) list:- New UIs for managing routes on Gatsby Desktop and the Gatsby CLI that walk you through the process of setting up new routes or editing existing routes, and then generating the needed code.
- A new GraphQL Toolkit that will make it easier for community members to quickly build first-class Gatsby integrations.
- Components from GraphQL: a way to request React components in your GraphQL queries. For example, this will simplify using `gatsby-transformer-sharp` and eliminate the need to use `GatsbyImage` fragments.
- Two new release candidates for WPGraphQL and WordPress.
- Two new accessibility components, Announce and Focus. These components make navigating Gatsby websites so much better for those using screen readers.
- Data-driven code-splitting. This will allow the conditional addition of modules to pages based on GraphQL data. It also enables loading optional/conditional code only for pages that actually need it, resulting in less Javascript being downloaded and parsed for pages that don’t need all components.
All of these developments are available as part of Gatsby’s free, open source framework, with plans to integrate many of these features into the Gatsby Cloud experience. We view this as part of the journey to a single seamless user experience from create to deploy.
What’s coming in Gatsby Cloud
- GitLab and Bitbucket support
Support for additional VCS providers, GitLab and Bitbucket, so you can bring repositories from multiple providers into your Gatsby Cloud Workspace. - Incremental Builds GA
Ongoing stability and performance enhancements to Incremental Builds, culminating in Incremental Builds moving from beta to generally available. - Lighthouse scores and Deploy Preview links in pull request comments
Already live inside your PRs! Easy-access links to your build previews and automatically updated performance metrics to keep your whole team on the same page about how your site looks and performs — all without leaving GitHub. - Gatsby Hosting
(Yes, we saved the best news for last!) Gatsby Hosting, coming later this year, is a content delivery network that you get by default with Gatsby Cloud — basically, built-in hosting for Gatsby Cloud! All plans (including our free tier) will get access to this, the best hosting with the fastest possible build times coupled with fast deploys for any sized Gatsby site. We believe that making Gatsby 1000x easier to use means being able to build, deploy, collaborate, and host assets for your website with the click of a button…And then making your content available to all your users around the globe in under 10 seconds. Gatsby Hosting makes it easier than ever to get started building the modern web — and with one less monthly bill.
There is so much more to come, but everything works together for the same goal: Making Gatsby the best dev environment with the fastest builds, fastest deploys, and a world-class CDN. You can check out all of the upcoming features we are working on — those in progress, and the ones we are considering next — in the Gatsby Cloud public portal.
Introducing new Gatsby Cloud pricing for individuals and teams
Since launching Gatsby Cloud earlier this year, we’ve heard feedback from the community that you want a plan catered to the needs of an individual developer: all the power of Gatsby Cloud and the speed of Incremental Builds with a price that fits an independent developer’s budget. Today we’re announcing two new plans that fit the needs of both individuals and teams–both with access to the features you need to leverage the full power of Gatsby Cloud.
In addition to providing plans for individuals and small teams, we continue to support our Enterprise customers with custom plans tailored to your needs. And, to ensure accessibility, we’ll always offer a no-cost Gatsby Cloud option for Gatsby users with personal sites. This permanent free plan includes some of Gatsby Cloud’s best collaboration features, including Deploy Previews for viewing code changes in the context of your whole site and real-time CMS Previews for headless CMS users who want to see their content updates as they happen.
Better, together
We aren’t kidding around: we want to change the way the web is built. To enable and empower everyone, regardless of experience, to build, create, and deploy highly scalable, excellent web experiences simply and cost-effectively. Unlike typical no code tools or monolithic CMSs, Gatsby enables users to use the best services and tools available while owning their own content.
When an open source project like Gatsby starts to move toward monetization, contributors and the community around the project understandably feel concerned. Worried that the open source project they freely committed their time and work to will take the money and run, suddenly restricting access or charging for the very thing everyone built together. We want to reassure everyone in our amazing and thriving Gatsby community that this is not what’s happening, now or ever. We deeply understand that Gatsby can only thrive if we continue to put code out in the open, and ask for help in improving it. Gatsby the open source framework will always be free. We are building Gatsby Cloud as the best platform for building and running Gatsby sites, and there will always be a permanent and robust free tier for personal projects.
So let’s get started! It couldn’t be easier. If you happen to have content bookmarked, or previously visited via another route like Twitter, you will be seamlessly redirected to the unified domain. Our new unified landing page gets you going right away and in the right direction, whether heading for open source or Cloud — so Gatsby users everywhere are set up for success ?.