Remove Ajax-based features

Ajax is a fairly common technology used in WordPress to asynchronously update, replace, or fetch content from the database.

Due to being reliant on the WordPress database, this feature doesn't work in a Static WordPress setup.

Common examples of Ajax in WordPress

  • Load More buttons
  • Search & Filter integrations
  • Fancy pagination solutions
  • Revolution Slider
  • Popups

Finding Alternatives

Most of these features can either be disabled entirely, like the load more functionality, replaced with a WordPress core feature like the pagination, or replaced with external tools.

Load More

The best replacement is to avoid using it altogether, as it doesn't improve your user experience or website performance.

Search & Filter Solutions

Simply Static integrates with Fuse.js and Algolia to enable a fully functional search when going static. Algolia also offers facetted search solutions that can be used to filter and live update a list of posts, pages, products, etc.

Learn more about facetted search with Algolia here: https://www.algolia.com/doc/guides/managing-results/refine-results/faceting/

Pagination

You can go with the default pagination from WordPress core, but if you want something a bit more comprehensive and configurable, we highly recommend WP Page Navi.

Revolution Slider

While probably one of the most flexible slider solutions available for WordPress, it's also a sure-fire way to destroy your performance.

This plugin is not only super bloated but also doesn't respect many WordPress Core standards, which results in countless problems.

We highly recommend avoiding this plugin at all costs. If you absolutely need a slider on your website, use one of the following alternatives:

Popups

We highly recommend avoiding popups in general, as they can massively harm your website's user experience and negatively impact its performance.

Most of the popup solutions work with Ajax and thus aren't compatible with a static site setup.

If you really need a popup for whatever reason, we recommend going with an externally hosted solution like: