Navigating the Challenges of Freelance Web Development: Seeking Insights and Strategies
As a seasoned freelance web developer with over five and a half years of experience, I often find myself reflecting on the process of building websites. Despite numerous projects under my belt, I haven’t yet achieved the sense of satisfaction I desire with my workflow and outcomes. Many in our field share these frustrations, and I wonder—are others sometimes tempted to throw in the towel?
The rapidly evolving landscape of web development presents a multitude of challenges, especially for freelancers juggling multiple responsibilities. From surging hosting costs and unforeseen tier-based charges to complex DevOps considerations and tooling best practices, staying afloat can feel overwhelming.
To shed light on some of the hurdles I’ve encountered, here’s a brief overview:
Cloud and CMS Platform Costs
I experimented with Sanity, which initially served my needs well. However, as clients’ user bases expanded, increased charges became inevitable. My approach was to charge clients a flat annual hosting fee, but rising bandwidth and usage costs occasionally forced me to ask for additional payments—something not always straightforward.
Self-Hosting and Content Management Systems
In an effort to reduce reliance on SaaS solutions, I’ve been working with Payload CMS, deploying it alongside Astro. While I managed to configure a deployment that operates smoothly—hosting on separate domains, such as example.com and admin.example.com—front-end development revealed a new set of complications. These include lacking a robust CDN for images, rendering rich text content, safely typing payload data, and handling data fetching without a local API. It’s been a constant battle to streamline these processes.
Fast-Paced Tooling Landscape
The tools we rely on are changing at a dizzying rate. Once, Gatsby was the go-to—then it faded. Next.js rose to prominence but now feels overly complex with caching and optimization intricacies. Currently exploring Astro, which I genuinely like, but I worry about constantly shifting between frameworks, leading to potential instability or learning curves.
Hosting and Deployment Dilemmas
Platforms like Vercel and Netlify offer great convenience, yet pricing can become opaque when presenting to clients. Explaining that hosting involves multiple service providers—like Sanity plus hosting platforms—adds confusion. I’ve also attempted self-hosting via DigitalOcean, but that transforms me into a sysadmin, firing commands and managing servers—a daunting task given the limited time I
