Navigating the Challenges of Freelance Web Development: Seeking Insights and Support
As a freelance web developer with over five and a half years of experience, I often find myself reflecting on the journey and questioning whether I’ve truly optimized my process. Despite having successfully delivered numerous client websites—primarily marketing and informational sites—I rarely feel entirely satisfied with how I approach and execute these projects.
The fast-evolving landscape of modern web development presents a series of challenges that can sometimes overwhelm even the most seasoned freelancers. Rising hosting costs, unexpected expenses due to tier changes, overage fees, and the complexities of DevOps and tooling practices often make the process more stressful than anticipated.
In an effort to share some of these frustrations and gather insights, here are a few of the recurring issues I’ve encountered over the years:
1. Challenges with Content Management Systems and Hosting Models
I experimented with Sanity.io, appreciating its ease until client needs grew and additional charges kicked in. Initially, I charged a flat annual hosting fee, but increased costs due to bandwidth spikes required difficult conversations with clients about additional expenses.
2. Exploring Self-Hosting for Greater Control
I’ve also worked with Payload CMS alongside static site generators like Astro, seeking to avoid SaaS subscription fees. After weeks of troubleshooting deployment issues—integrating with providers like DigitalOcean—I finally achieved a workable setup on multiple domains (example.com and [admin.example.com]). However, front-end development revealed further hurdles, such as lack of a reliable CDN for images, converting lexical content to HTML efficiently, and safely handling data types without comprehensive type definitions. These persistent obstacles are quite taxing.
3. Rapid Shifts in Tooling and Frameworks
The web development ecosystem is constantly shifting. I enjoyed using Gatsby, but as its popularity waned, Next.js became the go-to. Now, I’m exploring Astro, which I genuinely like, yet I worry about constantly switching stacks and the associated learning curves. The ever-changing landscape can feel like trying to keep up with a moving target.
4. Hosting and Deployment Concerns
Platforms like Vercel and Netlify are fantastic, but pricing out hosting for clients becomes complicated—especially when explaining that services like Sanity and hosting platforms are separate components. Attempts to manage hosting through DigitalOcean have forced me into sysadmin territory, executing commands and managing servers, which takes time away from core development work.
**5. Overall Struggles with
