I started a small discussion with the developer experience team here at Netlify, and and transcribed it for those interested and thinking about building larger-scale services. ## The question How would you architect a blogging platform with the Jamstack? A platform where users can: - Log in/Log out - Create blog posts - Publish them on their own URLs to share (like blogplatform.com/cassidoo/mypost) Many people think that this is where server-side rendering rules, and the Jamstack falls short. But behold, Phil Hawksworth had some good things to say! ## Phil’s response 2 parts to this question: ### 1\. Can Jamstack serve user-generated and user-centric content for many users? Yep. [app.netlify.com](https://app.netlify.com/) does this with a statically served app shell, and an API for more than 2 millions users and teams. It’s both dynamic, and personalized. But… blog posts are better not served as JSON which is rendered client-side like the content in the [app.netlify.com](https://app.netlify.com/) example. So, question 2… ### 2\. Can Jamstack deliver rendered content for user-generated and user-centric content? Not at scale until the advent of [On-demand Builders (ODB)](https://docs.netlify.com/configure-builds/on-demand-builders/) and its friends. > On-demand Builders are a type of serverless function that speed up build times for large sites by breaking content into two categories: critical content, which is automatically compiled at build time, and deferred content, which is built upon user request. On-demand builders enables you to incrementally build your site and is designed to work with any framework. Now, it is pretty attractive as an architecture really. It’s like a slight evolution of the [Virtual Lolly](https://github.com/philhawksworth/virtual-lolly) example I have, where we add auth and rendering via ODB. ![Diagram of blog platform site](/v3/img/blog/odbplatformarch.png) With the number of core pages being generated in the build kept to a few hundred (like, the main boilerplate and UI pages, and perhaps the most popular few hundred blog post pages), it could easily be re-deployed with a time period of a few hours so a “fresh” view of the most popular posts and related articles could be pre-generated regularly enough to be fit for purpose. All of the above architecture is viable right now, with the exception of a listing of latest posts per user on a URL like `/{USER}/POSTS`, which would need ODB to support expiring a URL so that it updates when a new post is added. But that view could come from a [serverless function](https://docs.netlify.com/functions/overview/) or [edge handler](https://www.netlify.com/products/#netlify-edge-functions). The blog post pages themselves via ODB are fine. (until we add ability to modify published posts, at which point the same logic as above applies). ## Thanks, Phil! Now what? Whew! I love learning, don’t you? If you’d like to learn more about applications of On-demand Builders, the architecture they implement, serverless, and moooore, here’s some good spots to get started: - [Faster builds for large sites on Netlify with On-demand Builders: Now in early access](https://www.netlify.com/blog/2021/04/14/faster-builds-for-large-sites-on-netlify-with-on-demand-builders-now-in-early-access/) - [Distributed Persistent Rendering RFC](https://github.com/jamstack/jamstack.org/discussions/549) - [Using Deferred Static Generation (DSG) with Gatsby](https://v4.gatsbyjs.com/docs/how-to/rendering-options/using-deferred-static-generation/) - [Up and Running with Serverless Functions: Free course](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCDhpRms4Ek&list=PLzlG0L9jlhENl1o2vLw6vFKvHBb9D5A0u) - [Static First: Pre-Generated JAMstack Sites with Serverless Rendering as a Fallback](https://css-tricks.com/static-first-pre-generated-jamstack-sites-with-serverless-rendering-as-a-fallback/) ### Share - [X (fka Twitter)](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Architecting a blogging platform on the Jamstack with On-demand Builders&url=https://www.netlify.com/blog/2021/11/12/architecting-a-blogging-platform-on-the-jamstack-with-on-demand-builders//) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.netlify.com%2Fblog%2F2021%2F11%2F12%2Farchitecting-a-blogging-platform-on-the-jamstack-with-on-demand-builders%2F%2F) - [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.netlify.com/blog/2021/11/12/architecting-a-blogging-platform-on-the-jamstack-with-on-demand-builders//) - [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/intent/compose?text=Architecting a blogging platform on the Jamstack with On-demand Builders+https://www.netlify.com/blog/2021/11/12/architecting-a-blogging-platform-on-the-jamstack-with-on-demand-builders//) * * * ### Tags - [Jamstack](/blog/tags/jamstack/) - [Terminology](/blog/tags/terminology/) - [On-demand Builders](/blog/tags/On-demand-Builders/) - [Build](/blog/tags/Build/) - [Incremental Static Generation](/blog/tags/Incremental-Static-Generation/) ## Keep reading ![](/images/blog-fallback-thumbnail.svg) News & Announcements April 22, 2021 [ ### Next.js on Netlify: Now with support for On-demand Builders and Distributed Persistent Rendering ](/blog/2021/04/22/next.js-on-netlify-now-with-support-for-on-demand-builders-and-distributed-persistent-rendering/) - ![Profile picture of Netlify team](/_astro/2ded7a52db41c7613be0baa648ac9bf9c1e8a985-300x300_DNhVu.svg) Netlify team ![](/images/blog-fallback-thumbnail.svg) News & Announcements April 14, 2021 [ ### Faster builds for large sites on Netlify with On-demand Builders: Now in early access ](/blog/2021/04/14/faster-builds-for-large-sites-on-netlify-with-on-demand-builders-now-in-early-access/) - ![Profile picture of Asavari Tayal](/_astro/810c07096de0f6cab6dbe3e2436083dcc6f6d401-80x80_1GOIxQ.webp) Asavari Tayal ## Recent posts News & Announcements June 25, 2026 [ ### Netlify Functions, designed for Agent Experience ](/blog/netlify-functions-designed-for-agent-experience) - ![Profile picture of Eduardo Bouças](/_astro/52958f21e8450baf6d8e60302341a984e220c0cd-512x512_13VDlu.webp) Eduardo Bouças News & Announcements June 24, 2026 [ ### How we measure Netlify’s Agent Experience ](/blog/how-we-measure-netlify-agent-experience) - ![Profile picture of Sean Roberts](/_astro/bbf2243f8171dbddd80ab2103622106cef84d125-512x512_Z1d2LKE.webp) Sean Roberts Guides & Tutorials May 15, 2026 [ ### How to build a real-time AI chatbot in minutes with Netlify Agent Runners (no backend) ](/blog/how-to-build-a-real-time-ai-chatbot-in-minutes-with-netlify-agent-runners-no-backend) - ![Profile picture of Nahrin Jalal](/_astro/f0e7c8f227a03fe58340c99ef5439d5a896c0733-272x272_Z23kDpD.webp) Nahrin Jalal ![](/_astro/3f255b372fa958df35802666ee33b4609b2d71bd-1200x1586_1VtE2D.webp) ### How do the best dev and marketing teams work together? 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