Static vs dynamic sites
This is the single most useful idea in web hosting. Almost every “how do I deploy X?” question is answered by knowing which of these two X is.
How to tell which one you have
Ask: does my project need a program running on the server to answer each request?
- No → it’s static. A React/Vue/Angular app, or plain HTML, becomes a pile of
.html,.css, and.jsfiles after you “build” it. The server just hands those files to the browser; all the smarts run in the visitor’s browser. Deploy = upload the built files. - Yes → it’s dynamic. WordPress, a PHP site, a Node/Express API, a Python app — these are programs that run on the server and generate pages (often reading from a database). Deploy = give OrbixPanel the code and it runs it for you as a service.
Why this matters
It tells you which part of the panel to use:
| Your project | It’s… | Deploy with |
|---|---|---|
| React / Vue / Angular / Vite build, plain HTML | Static | File Manager → upload to the web root |
| WordPress | Dynamic (PHP) | One-click WordPress |
| PHP / Laravel | Dynamic | Apps (PHP) + a database |
| Node / Python API | Dynamic | Apps → Deploy from Git |
A “build step” (
npm run build) doesn’t make something dynamic — it just turns your source code into static files. After building, a React app is static. That’s the trick that confuses people most.
Next: Put a React / Vite site online → — the whole thing, step by step.