Navigating the Challenges of Freelance Web Development: A Personal Reflection
As a freelance web developer with over five years of experience, I’ve encountered numerous hurdles that often leave me questioning whether I’m on the right path. Building websites for clients has always been rewarding, yet there’s an underlying sense that I haven’t quite yet perfected the process. If you’ve ever felt similarly, know that you’re not alone.
The rapidly evolving landscape of web development presents a unique set of challenges, especially for freelancers juggling multiple responsibilities. From managing hosting costs to dealing with complex tooling and deployment intricacies, staying ahead can be overwhelming. Here’s a candid overview of some recurring issues I’ve faced along the way:
1. Challenges with Content Management and Hosting Costs
I experimented with Sanity, a popular headless CMS, which initially seemed promising. However, as client needs expanded—such as requiring more user access—the cost structure became a concern. Billing based on usage meant unexpected charges during traffic spikes, complicating client communication and project budgeting. I initially adopted a traditional flat-rate approach, but price increases prompted the need for transparency with clients regarding additional costs.
2. Exploring Self-Hosted Solutions and Deployment Difficulties
To avoid SaaS subscription fees, I turned to Payload CMS, deploying it alongside static site generators like Astro. The goal was seamless local development and straightforward deployment to cloud providers like DigitalOcean. After extensive troubleshooting—fixing bugs and configuring deployment pipelines—I managed to get it functioning across multiple domains (example.com and admin.example.com). Yet, front-end development revealed further hurdles: efficient image delivery without a CDN, rendering complex content to HTML, type safety concerns, and data fetching issues without a robust API. These persistent obstacles have driven me to seek advice and shared insights.
3. The Rapid Pace of Tooling Evolution
The web development ecosystem is in a constant state of flux. I started with Gatsby, which was excellent initially but lost favor as the community shifted toward Next.js, now feeling increasingly complex and bloated, especially around caching strategies. Currently, I’m exploring Astro, which I enjoy, yet I worry about jumping between different frameworks and losing momentum or consistency in my workflow.
4. Hosting and Deployment Economics
While providers like Vercel and Netlify simplify deployment, pricing these services for client projects poses challenges. Explaining that hosting costs are separate from the
