About static vs. dynamic rendering on the server side, the Movable Type CMS used to do exactly as you suggest and it was difficult to make changes on large sites. Imagine if you want to change a link on a sidebar and have to re-​build every HTML page served by your CMS to do that. Caching dynamic pages is a bit of a “hybrid” system where you can just publish your new sidebar, then clear cache on the first request for each particular changed page.<p>About the client side, the situation is a bit different because the JS is actually third-​party software designed to be dropped in and updated easily, so it’s not just an implementation detail. Very few publishers are going to build or host their own server-​side analytics or commenting systems…