Serverless computing is the norm, edge experimentation is on the rise, and Web3 remains a hype.
These are some of the key findings in Netlify’s third annual Jamstack Community Surveythat measures developer sentiment.
“We love data,” said Matt Biilmann, CEO and co-founder of netlify. “The survey highlights the trends of the community, for the community.”
As he explained, the survey aims to help developers learn from their peers and help companies better gauge developer needs and preferences. Netlify will discuss the full findings at: Jam stack Conf on November 7 and 8.
“We think it’s extremely important to stay on top of trends in the Jamstack, because these are the people who are building the future of the modern web,” says Biilmann.
Serverless computing for impactful work
Jamstack is a buildable web development architecture that enables developers to create reusable components to build and distribute apps faster and more easily to a global edge network.
“The Jamstack ecosystem is evolving rapidly as more and more companies adopt composable architectures and developers move away from traditional monolithic websites and apps,” says Biilmann.
Notably, Netlify’s survey of the Jamstack community found that the serverless cloud-native development model is officially mainstream: 70% of developers report using it, up from 46% last year. Meanwhile, 47% of developers are experimenting with dynamic edge sites.
Biilmann pointed out that when serverless technologies are integrated into platforms, web developers can focus on building user experiences, rather than doing tedious devops work, managing infrastructure, or using tools for core observation.
“It increases developer productivity and frees up time to focus on the most impactful work,” he said.
Comment still favorite; the great TypeScript migration continues
When it comes to building applications, React remains the overwhelming favorite (71%), followed by Next.js. Nearly 1 in 2 developers (47%) said they have built sites with Next.js in the past year.
Still, newcomers like Astro (11%) and SolidJS (6%) got off to a strong start, and Remix (10%) and Sveltekit (15%) grew strongly year over year, according to the report. And Vite saw an 18% increase since last year.
Also, the so-called “great TypeScript migration” continues, with the use of the language growing by 110% over the past two years.
Nearly a quarter of developers say that TypeScript is their primary programming language. Still, 96% of developers use JavaScript (even if it’s not their primary choice), according to the report.
When it comes to CMS preference, WordPress is meanwhile used by 37% of developers, although many report that their satisfaction with it is lower than alternatives. At the same time, WordPress as a standalone CMS is losing market share, and using WordPress as a headless API to power a Jamstack site is 22%. Newcomer Storyblok is now used by 9% of developers.
“More and more developers are realizing the potential of headless architecture in building and deploying better web experiences,” said Dominik Angerer, CEO and founder of Storyblok.
At the same time, he said, a content team leveraging the power of Jamstack with a headless CMS gets “the content tools they need and love to create great front-end experiences.”
Netlify still reports Web3 just a developer concept
Interestingly, developers are not responding to Web3’s incredible hype.
When asked about their attitude towards Web3 in general, 42% of developers either don’t know what Web3 is or don’t care about it, while 31% were negative about it, according to the survey.
While 7% to 10% of developers have tried technologies such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, only 3% report using these technologies regularly.
“Now that the storm has passed, we’ll get a better sense of what the underlying ideas of proprietary data and identity can really bring to the web,” Biilmann said. “The number of active developers on the most popular Web3 platforms has always been low compared to the industry hype.”
Remote working isn’t just the norm: it’s expected
Given the pandemic, it’s not surprising that remote working has become the new norm. Remarkably, according to the survey, 55% of developers said they would even quit their jobs if they were forced to return to an office. Developers are also not afraid of job hop.
Biilmann pointed out that Netlify was a remote company before the pandemic and called web development well suited for remote work.
“But it was interesting to see how committed developers are to working remotely, even in a year when offices reopened,” he said.
According to the survey:
- 83% of developers work remotely more than half of the time.
- 76% maintained or increased the frequency of remote working in the past year.
- 33% changed jobs in the past year, the most frequently cited reasons being the flexibility of remote working, career advancement opportunities and compensation.
The fact that flexible work policies are often more important to developers than compensation “shows how drastically the workforce has changed in recent years,” Biilmann said.
In the end, he noted, “I am constantly inspired by the creativity taking place in the Jamstack ecosystem, and the research findings show that the pace of innovation is not going to slow down anytime soon.”
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