Navigating the Challenges of Freelance Web Development: A Personal Reflection

As a seasoned freelance web developer with over five and a half years of experience, I often find myself questioning whether I’ve truly mastered the art of building websites. Despite having crafted numerous client-facing sites—primarily marketing and informational pages—there’s a persistent feeling that I could do better or that the process could be more streamlined. Does anyone else sometimes feel overwhelmed to the point of considering quitting?

The ever-evolving landscape of modern web development presents a host of challenges, especially for freelancers managing multiple responsibilities simultaneously. From rising hosting fees and unexpected tier changes to complex DevOps processes and ever-changing tooling standards, maintaining efficiency and quality can feel like an uphill battle.

Reflecting on the Journey and Its Challenges

Over the years, I’ve experimented with various content management and deployment strategies, each with its own set of hurdles:

• Sanity CMS: Initially, I appreciated Sanity’s flexibility. However, as client needs grew and user numbers increased, billing suddenly shot up. I had naively adopted a fixed annual hosting fee approach, but when costs spiked unexpectedly due to bandwidth usage, I had to explain additional charges to clients—sometimes complicating relationships.

• Payload CMS with Self-Hosting: I explored self-hosted options like Payload combined with static site generators such as Astro, hoping to bypass SaaS fees. After weeks of troubleshooting—including deployment issues on platforms like DigitalOcean—I finally achieved a working setup. My sites now operate on separate domains, but development remains frustrating. Without a CDN similar to Sanity’s built-in solution, image optimization becomes cumbersome. Rendering rich text content and safely managing payload data pose additional hurdles, highlighting the ongoing tug-of-war between flexibility and complexity.

• Evolving Tooling Ecosystem: The landscape shifts rapidly—Gatsby was once the darling, then Next.js took over, only to start feeling bloated and complicated, especially with caching and performance optimizations. Currently exploring Astro, I like its approach but worry about constantly jumping between frameworks, which can lead to a fragmented workflow.

• Hosting and Deployment Woes: Platforms like Vercel and Netlify offer convenience, but their pricing models and integrations (like separating Sanity from Vercel) often cause confusion when explaining costs to clients. DigitalOcean provides more control but transforms me into a sysadmin, which is a steep learning curve and often time-consuming.

The Search for a Sustainable Solution

Despite my skills