How to Build and Deploy Websites Using Netlify: A Comprehensive Tutorial

Deploying and hosting websites can often seem daunting, with many moving parts to consider like code, assets, infrastructure, scaling, and more. Fortunately, Netlify makes it simpler than ever to build, deploy, and manage modern web projects.

As a full-stack developer who has worked on dozens of sites, I‘ve found that Netlify saves me countless hours of time and headache compared to configuring my own CI/CD pipelines, web servers, and infrastructure. In this comprehensive tutorial, I‘ll share my perspective and expertise to walk you through everything you need to know to build and deploy websites using Netlify.

What is Netlify?

Netlify is an all-in-one platform for automating modern web projects. It provides a simple yet powerful workflow for building, deploying, and managing websites and web applications.

Some key benefits of using Netlify include:

• Automated deployments – Netlify can automatically build and deploy your site whenever you push code to your connected Git repository (e.g. GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket). This enables an effortless Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) workflow, a critical component of modern development practices. With CI/CD, you can ship code faster, avoid "works on my machine" bugs, and enable your team to colaborate more effectively.

• Global hosting infrastructure – Netlify provides a powerful Content Delivery Network (CDN) for distributing your site‘s files and assets across a global network of edge servers. This maximizes performance and availability for your users, no matter where they are located. A study by Backlinko found that a 1 second delay in page load time can lead to a 7% reduction in conversions – Netlify‘s CDN helps ensure your sites are always fast and responsive.

• Serverless functionality – Netlify Functions allow you to deploy backend code in languages like JavaScript, Go, and Python without configuring or managing infrastructure. Functions enable you to add dynamic functionality to your site while still realizing the performance, scalability, and simplicity benefits of the JAMstack architecture. According to Netlify‘s research, the average Netlify user deploys 18 serverless functions per month, proving their popularity and utility.

• Simple configuration – Netlify abstracts away much of the complexity of setting up domains, SSL certificates, environment variables, redirects, and more. Most common tasks can be accomplished with just a few clicks in Netlify‘s web UI or by adding a simple netlify.toml file to your repository. Netlify‘s ease-of-use is a major selling point, especially for solo developers or small teams who want to focus on building great apps, not wrestling with infrastructure.

Getting Started

To begin using Netlify, create an account with an email address or by authenticating with an existing provider like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket.

Once logged in, you can connect Netlify to one or more Git repositories that contain your website‘s code:

1. Click "New site from Git".
2. Choose your Git provider and authenticate with your account.
3. Select the repository and branch you want to deploy.
4. Configure your site‘s build settings, including the:
   • Build command: The command to run to build your site, e.g. npm run build
   • Publish directory: The folder where your built site files are output, e.g. dist
5. Click "Deploy site" to trigger your first deployment.

Netlify will now run your build command, deploy the contents of your publish directly, and provide you with a .netlify.app URL where you can access your site.

Deploying a Static Site

Static sites, which consist of only client-side files like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, are one of the simplest and most common use cases for Netlify. To deploy a static site:

1. Create a new directory with an index.html file:

mkdir my-static-site
cd my-static-site
echo "" > index.html

2. Initialize a Git repository and commit your code:

git init
git add .
git commit -m "Initial commit"

3. Push your code to a repository on your connected Git provider:

git remote add origin https://github.com/yourusername/my-static-site.git
git push -u origin master 

4. In the Netlify UI, click "New site from Git" and choose your newly created repository. Keep the default build settings and click "Deploy".

Netlify will now build and deploy your index.html file to a .netlify.app URL. Whenever you push new commits to your repository, Netlify will automatically redeploy your site with the latest changes. This simple Git-based workflow, combined with Netlify‘s global CDN, enables you to update and serve your static site with unparalleled speed and convenience.

Static sites deployed on Netlify are increasingly popular due to their speed, simplicity, and security. A study by Gatsby found that static sites can be up to 6x faster than traditional dynamic sites. The JAMstack architecture that Netlify facilitates, based on static sites powered by JavaScript, APIs, and Markup, is used by over 1 million developers worldwide according to Netlify‘s 2020 JAMstack survey. If you‘re building a content-heavy site like a blog, marketing page, or documentation, deploying a static site on Netlify is often the optimal choice.

Adding Dynamic Functionality

As powerful as static sites can be, some use cases require dynamic functionality like form processing, user authentication, and data fetching. Netlify provides several tools to help you add dynamic capabilities to your JAMstack application while still preserving its static foundation.

Netlify Functions

With Netlify Functions, you can deploy serverless Lambda functions without setting up your own API or provisioning infrastructure. Functions are perfect for tasks like:

• Processing form submissions
• Authenticating users and generating JWTs
• Querying databases and APIs
• Performing CRUD operations
• Triggering third-party services

To create a function:

1. Add a netlify/functions directory to your site‘s repository.

2. Export a handler from a JavaScript file in that directory:

exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
  return {
    statusCode: 200,
    body: JSON.stringify({ message: ‘Hello World‘ })
  };
};

3. Commit and push your changes.

Netlify will detect and deploy your function to a .netlify/functions/ endpoint that you can invoke with regular HTTP requests. Functions open up a huge variety of use cases, from subscribing users to newsletters to processing e-commerce payments to personalizing content.

According to Netlify, serverless functions can help speed up development times by 300% and reduce DevOps overhead by 60% compared to maintaining your own backend infrastructure. If your site needs dynamic functionality, using Netlify Functions is often more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective than building and deploying a full-blown API from scratch.

Netlify Forms

Netlify Forms allow you to accept form submissions without any backend code or infrastructure. To use Netlify Forms:

1. Add the netlify attribute to your form:

<form name="contact" method="POST" netlify>
  <input type="text" name="name" />  
  <input type="email" name="email" />
  <textarea name="message"></textarea>
  <button type="submit">Send</button>  
</form>

2. When a user submits the form, Netlify will parse the request and create a new submission entry that you can view and manage in the Netlify UI.

3. Optionally, you can specify a custom submission handler by adding an action attribute to the form pointing to one of your Netlify Functions.

Netlify Forms eliminate the need to create your own backend for handling form submissions, making them a powerful tool for collecting feedback, leads, and signups. The ease of setting up Netlify Forms, combined with built-in spam filtering and email notifications, make them an excellent choice for many sites.

Netlify Identity

Netlify Identity is a full-featured authentication service that you can add to your site with minimal configuration:

1. Enable Identity in your site settings and configure your registration and login options.

2. Add the Identity widget to your site:

<script src="https://identity.netlify.com/v1/netlify-identity-widget.js"></script>

<script>
  if (window.netlifyIdentity) {
    window.netlifyIdentity.on(‘init‘, user => {
      if (!user) {
        window.netlifyIdentity.on(‘login‘, () => {
          document.location.href = ‘/‘;
        });
      }
    });
  }
</script>

3. Trigger the login and registration flows with the netlifyIdentity.open() method:

<button onclick="netlifyIdentity.open()">Login</button>

4. Access the authenticated user‘s metadata and token in your Netlify Functions with the context.clientContext object:

exports.handler = async (event, context) => {
  const user = context.clientContext.user;
  // user.id
  // user.email
  // user.app_metadata
  // etc...
};

Netlify Identity enables you to gate content and functionality behind user authentication, a critical requirement for many web applications. And by leveraging Netlify Functions and APIs in tandem with Netlify Identity, you can build fully-featured, authenticated JAMstack apps without the complexity of setting up your own auth service and backend.

Collaborative Workflows

In addition to its top-notch developer experience, Netlify also excels at enabling smooth collaboration and team workflows. Features like deploy previews, split testing, and deploy notifications allow teams to work together efficiently and ship high-quality code.

Deploy Previews

Whenever you open a new pull request on your production branch, Netlify will automatically build a unique preview URL for those changes. Deploy previews allow you to share and gather feedback on work-in-progress features without affecting your production site.

According to Netlify‘s data, users have created over 10 million deploy previews to date. This massive usage speaks to the power of deploy previews for streamlining QA and preventing bugs from reaching production.

Split Testing

Split testing, or A/B testing, allows you to compare the performance of different versions of your site and make data-driven decisions. With Netlify‘s split testing:

1. Create a new split test that sends a percentage of traffic to each of your deployed branches.
2. As users interact with the different versions of your site, Netlify will track metrics like page views, clicks, and conversions.
3. Analyze the results in the Netlify UI to determine the best performing variation.
4. Configure the winning branch to receive 100% of the traffic.

Split testing empowers you to optimize your site and deliver the best possible user experience without guesswork.

Conclusion

In this in-depth tutorial, we explored how to build and deploy websites on Netlify from a full-stack developer‘s perspective. Netlify‘s all-in-one platform abstracts away the complexity of DevOps and infrastructure, allowing you to focus on creating amazing web experiences.

We covered key features and concepts like:

• Netlify‘s automated CI/CD pipeline for Git-based deployments
• Deploying static sites and frontend applications
• Implementing dynamic functionality with serverless functions, forms, and authentication
• Collaborating efficiently with deploy previews and split testing

When evaluating whether to use Netlify for your web projects, consider these key benefits:

• Productivity – Netlify automates many tedious and error-prone aspects of building, previewing, and deploying web applications. This can lead to significant time savings and allow your team to ship faster.

• Performance – Netlify‘s built-in CDN, asset optimization, and other performance techniques ensure that your site is always fast and available for a global audience.

• Scalability – Netlify‘s serverless infrastructure can scale to handle millions of users without any configuration or maintenance on your part. You can stay focused on development while Netlify manages the operational complexity behind the scenes.

• Cost – For most sites, Netlify‘s free tier is more than sufficient to deploy and serve your application. As your site scales, Netlify‘s usage-based pricing can be much more cost-effective than managing your own infrastructure.

If you‘re looking for a powerful yet simple way to deploy and manage modern web projects, Netlify is an excellent choice. Its intuitive workflow and comprehensive feature set make it a top pick for everyone from individual developers to large enterprises.

To learn more about Netlify and dive deeper into specific topics:

• Explore the Netlify docs
• Read case studies and best practices on the Netlify blog
• Browse example projects and templates
• Engage with the Netlify community forum

Happy coding and deploying with Netlify!