Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

GatsbyJS VS Write.as

Compare GatsbyJS VS Write.as and see what are their differences

GatsbyJS logo GatsbyJS

Blazing-fast static site generator for React

Write.as logo Write.as

Publish a thought in seconds
  • GatsbyJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12
  • Write.as Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-19

GatsbyJS features and specs

  • Performance
    GatsbyJS pre-builds your site into static files for fast load times and instantaneous page loads thanks to features like code splitting, PRPL pattern, and Asset Optimization.
  • SEO-Friendly
    GatsbyJS generates static HTML, which helps search engines to index your site more effectively. Additionally, you have fine-grained control over metadata and other SEO optimizations.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    GatsbyJS boasts an extensive plugin ecosystem that covers a wide array of functionalities such as sourcing data from CMSs, adding analytics, integrating with various APIs, and much more.
  • Strong Community Support
    Gatsby has a robust and active community that provides ample documentation, tutorials, and support to help you get started and troubleshoot issues.
  • Secure and Scalable
    Since Gatsby sites are static, they are inherently more secure against traditional web-based vulnerabilities and can be scaled easily by deploying to a CDN.

Possible disadvantages of GatsbyJS

  • Build Time
    For larger sites, build times can become noticeably long as Gatsby rebuilds the entire site. This can be a bottleneck for frequent updates.
  • Less Suitable for Dynamic Content
    Since Gatsby generates static pages, it's less suited for applications that require real-time data updates or dynamic content unless they are integrated with client-side JS or third-party services.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    Getting started with Gatsby can be complex for beginners unfamiliar with React and GraphQL, as it requires knowledge of these technologies.
  • GraphQL Learning Curve
    A significant part of customizing and extending Gatsby sites involves GraphQL queries, which can be a barrier for developers who are not yet familiar with GraphQL.
  • Plugin Quality Variability
    While Gatsby has a rich plugin ecosystem, the quality and maintenance of plugins can vary, requiring developers to vet the plugins they choose to integrate into their projects.

Write.as features and specs

  • Simplicity
    Write.as provides a minimalist and distraction-free writing experience, focusing solely on the content without the usual clutter of other blogging platforms.
  • Anonymity
    Users can post content anonymously, which is ideal for those who want to share thoughts without revealing their identity.
  • Privacy
    The platform emphasizes privacy, with no tracking, ads, or third-party cookies, giving users peace of mind.
  • Markdown Support
    Write.as uses Markdown for formatting, making it easy for users familiar with Markdown to format their posts quickly.
  • Speed
    The platform is lightweight and fast, ensuring a quick and seamless writing and reading experience.

Possible disadvantages of Write.as

  • Limited Features
    Due to its minimalist approach, it lacks many features found in other blogging platforms, such as custom themes, plugins, or advanced SEO tools.
  • Subscription Cost
    While Write.as offers a free version, some of the more desirable features, like custom domains and multiple blogs, require a paid subscription.
  • Customization
    Users have limited options for customizing the appearance of their blogs, which might be a drawback for those who want a highly personalized site.
  • Limited Community Interaction
    Unlike some other blogging platforms, Write.as does not have features like comments or community engagement tools out of the box.
  • Learning Curve with Markdown
    Users unfamiliar with Markdown may find it challenging to format their posts initially, requiring a learning curve.

GatsbyJS videos

The Great Gatsby - Movie Review by Chris Stuckmann

More videos:

  • Review - The Great Gatsby movie review
  • Review - The Ultimate Gatsby Moving Rubber Review!

Write.as videos

Write.as & Why I Use elementary OS

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GatsbyJS and Write.as)
CMS
40 40%
60% 60
Blogging
33 33%
67% 67
Developer Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Blogging Platform
27 27%
73% 73

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare GatsbyJS and Write.as

GatsbyJS Reviews

Top JavaScript Frameworks in 2025
Gatsby JS is a free, open-source, React-based framework that is used to create static websites. It has a great ecosystem of plugins that serve various needs like sourcing data from CMSs, integrating tools, managing images using lazy loading, and more.
Source: solguruz.com
Top 10 Next.js Alternatives You Can Try
Gatsby allows you to add plugins with versatile functions and customization to increase your efficiency when developing websites. Here, you can use multiple styling approaches like Sass and CSS-in-JS library solutions to build web pages more smoothly. Moreover, using Gatsby as an alternative to Next.Js provides you with a complete learning guide to enhance your developing...
20 Next.js Alternatives Worth Considering
A React-based maestro, Gatsby transforms the way sites come to life by hooking into a rich set of data sources. Picture this: a web that’s blazing fast, where your creations go live almost before you hit ‘publish’. That’s Gatsby for you. Inside its engine, it’s got GraphQL superpowers, making data dancing across your pages a breeze.
10 Best Next.js Alternatives to Consider Today
A React-based framework, Gatsby excels in crafting static websites renowned for their exceptional performance. Leveraging GraphQL, Gatsby efficiently pulls data from diverse sources, empowering developers to build dynamic, data-driven websites effortlessly. Its expansive plugin ecosystem allows seamless integration with various data providers, content management systems...
20 Best JavaScript Frameworks For 2023
Gatsby lets users pull data from any data source imaginable – CMS like WordPress, Drupal, Netlify, Contentful, etc., or APIs, databases, or simple markdown. Unlike Next.js, which we discussed above, Gatsby does not perform server-side rendering. Instead, it generates HTML content on the client side during build time. As a result, Gatsby delivers blazing-fast performance,...

Write.as Reviews

25+ Medium Alternative Platforms for Publishing Articles
Write.as is a proprietary blogging platform for people who love to write and have no intentions of building a brand. Anonymous writers can hide their identity via the service, which only holds on to minimal information about its publishers. This new system weeds away marketers or those who want to build perception, so if you just enjoy the joy of writing without worrying...
Source: forgefusion.io
9 Best Medium Alternatives for Making Money With Your Writing in 2023
Write.as offers a clean, ultra-minimalistic, and ad-free user experience where the content takes center stage. Even the author can take a backseat, as one of the main features of the platform is anonymous posting without creating an account. That said, account-less posts only stay live for 1 hour.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Write.as should be more popular than GatsbyJS. It has been mentiond 57 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GatsbyJS mentions (16)

  • React SEO: How to Build Search-Friendly Pages in React
    The most famous frameworks for developing SSR applications are Gatsby and Next.js. Although there are differences between them, their main goal is similar: to allow next-generation web applications to remain blazing-fast. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • External content for GatsbyJS
    If you enjoy React and want a standard-compliant and high performance web, you should look at GatsbyJS. - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
  • Replatforming from Gatsby to Zola!
    Since around 2019 I have used Gatsby as my static site generator. Its plugin system makes it super feature extensible. It uses React under the hood which makes components easy to write and has tons of community support. Once I had a Gatsby site styled and running, publishing blog posts is fairly trivial:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Build a Documentation Website with Gatsby in 10 Mins
    Smooth DOC is a ready-to-use Gatsby theme to create a documentation website. Creating a pro-quality website like this one takes weeks. Smooth DOC saves you time and lets you focus on the content. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Where to begin?
    I'd start with learning HTML and CSS first, then Javascript after those. There are a lot of free online resources for learning those. For websites, I use jekyll which is a great way to start off because there are a lot of community website templates that you can customize, which is great for beginners and learning. Then I'd recommend learning/moving to React. The Gatsby website generator would be good for React... Source: over 2 years ago
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Write.as mentions (57)

  • Show HN: LinkedIn sucks, so I built a better one
    There's a ton of those platforms, varying from extremely unknown to fairly well established. I'm pretty sure multiple of them end up as a Show HN every year. The only thing on your list they generally don't do is domain registration, but keeping that separate is generally a good thing. Sibling mentioned bearblog.dev, I'll mention write.as[1]. [1]: https://write.as/. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • WriteFreely: An open source platform for building a writing space on the web
    I'd noticed some years back that this project seems to have started with a pretty strong anonymity story: https://write.as/ That seemed to diminish in emphasis a few years ago, stopped accepting accounts that didn't give you a credit card end of 2021, and some year recently (last year? I forget…) seemed as though the warrant canary missed a couple updates. (It's up to date now, with an assertion of no warrants... - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • WriteFreely: An open source platform for building a writing space on the web
    From what I understand, Mastodon is to Twitter as WriteFreely is to WordPress.com/Medium/Blogger/etc. Fediverse-aware, open-source, with a flagship SaaS hosted instance available at https://write.as. If microblogging hadn't fried my brain and I was interested in spinning up a longform blog, this is the software I would choose. - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
  • Researchers, please replace SQLite with DuckDB now
    Substack has problems too. For hosted foss services, write.as (https://write.as/) and bearblog (https://bearblog.dev/) are good. If self-hosting, the choices are infinite. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Link Building for Non-Scumbags: Build Authority Without Being Awful
    Take the site write.as, for instance, which has a 70 domain authority (Moz) and a 79 domain rating (Ahrefs).  Both of those are very high scores and represent the kind of links that would probably retail for at least $400 on the gray market for backlinks.  Write.as will happily give you as many of these as you want for $6 per month. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GatsbyJS and Write.as, you can also consider the following products

Jekyll - Jekyll is a simple, blog aware, static site generator.

Ghost - Ghost is a fully open source, adaptable platform for building and running a modern online publication. We power blogs, magazines and journalists from Zappos to Sky News.

Hugo - Hugo is a general-purpose website framework for generating static web pages.

WordPress - WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.

Medium - Welcome to Medium, a place to read, write, and interact with the stories that matter most to you.

Hexo - A fast, simple & powerful blog framework, powered by Node.js