Compendium

The short version

Right now, schon.ch runs on a server that's switched on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — even at 3 AM when nobody is visiting. It runs PHP, MySQL, WordPress, and WooCommerce the entire time. That made sense for getting live fast, but it means ongoing electricity, security updates, and monthly costs. Both the blog and the shop depend on this one server.

With «no server», we build your website once, and it becomes a collection of ready-made files — like a stack of printed brochures. Your editorials become pre-built pages. Your shop becomes a «buy» button that talks to Stripe. These files get copied to Cloudflare's global network (thousands of locations worldwide). When someone visits schon.ch, the nearest copy is handed over instantly. No computer needs to «think» or «build» the page on the fly.

The restaurant analogy

But wait — what about the blog and the shop?

The static files handle everything visitors see — your 490 editorials, your about page, your beautiful photography, and your shop pages. When someone clicks "Buy", they're redirected to Stripe — a separate, specialized service that handles payments. Stripe is their server, their responsibility, their security. Your editorials are just files — no server needed to show them.

So «no server» means: no server that you need to run, pay for, or worry about — for either the blog or the shop.

What you gain

API (Application Programming Interface)

A way for two pieces of software to talk to each other. When we say "WordPress REST API", we mean a door in your WordPress site that other programs can knock on to get your content — like asking a librarian for a specific book instead of browsing the whole library yourself.

CDN (Content Delivery Network)

A network of computers spread across the world that store copies of your website. When someone in Zurich visits your site, they get it from a server nearby — not from one computer in a data center far away. Think of it like having your magazine available at every kiosk in every city, instead of only at one shop in Bern.

Cloudflare

A company that runs one of the world's largest CDNs. They offer free hosting for static websites. Your site gets copied to 300+ locations worldwide. It's like FedEx for websites — fast, global, reliable, and for static sites, free.

DIVI

A visual page builder plugin for WordPress. It lets you drag and drop elements to design pages without writing code — great for getting a site live quickly. The trade-off at scale: it adds extra markup to every page (often 2MB+), which adds up as the site grows. Both your editorials and shop pages are built with DIVI right now.

DNS (Domain Name System)

The internet's phone book. It translates "schon.ch" into the actual address of the computer that hosts your site. When we "switch DNS", we're telling the phone book to point your domain at the new site instead of the old one. Visitors don't notice — they just type schon.ch like always.

Frontmatter

A small block of metadata at the top of a markdown file, written between --- marks. It stores things like title, date, category, and cover image — the "label" on each editorial. Example: title: "Summer Editorials", category: "fashion", date: "2024-06-01". Nuxt Content reads this automatically to build archive pages, filters, and SEO tags.

Ghost

A publishing platform built specifically for writers and editorial teams. Beautiful editor, built-in newsletters, membership tiers, and a clean API. It's what Medium would be if you owned it. Solution 2 uses Ghost for the blog. Hosted plans start at ~$9/month.

Headless

A setup where the "head" (what visitors see) is separated from the "body" (where data is stored). Your current WordPress is both head and body. In a headless setup, Nuxt is the head (beautiful, fast) and Stripe or WordPress is the body (data, payments). Each tool does what it's best at.

Markdown

A simple way to write formatted text using plain characters. **Bold**, *italic*, # headings — that's it. No complex editor needed. In Solution 3, each of your ~490 editorials becomes a markdown file. Think of it as writing in a slightly decorated notepad — clean and distraction-free.

Nuxt / Nuxt 3

A framework for building websites with Vue.js (a popular programming language for user interfaces). Nuxt can generate static sites (no server needed) or dynamic sites. This very site you're reading is built with Nuxt.

Nuxt Content

A module for Nuxt that turns markdown files into web pages. Write a .md file, and Nuxt Content renders it as a fast, styled page with SEO, categories, search, and more. It's what powers the blog in Solution 3 — your ~490 editorials as markdown files, zero database, zero hosting cost.

Nuxt Image

A module for Nuxt that automatically optimizes images — resizing, compressing, and serving modern formats (WebP, AVIF). For a photo-heavy editorial site like Schön!, this means faster page loads without manual image processing.

Nuxt Studio

A browser-based visual editor for Nuxt Content sites. It lets you write and edit markdown files with a Notion-like interface — no code needed. Changes are committed to git automatically. Free tier available. It's the «wp-admin» of the Nuxt Content world, but lighter.

Open Source

Software whose code is publicly available for anyone to inspect, use, and improve. WordPress, Nuxt, and Vue.js are all open source. It means you're not locked into one company's product — the community maintains it together.

PCI-DSS

A security standard for handling credit card data. Stripe is PCI-DSS compliant, which means they handle all the sensitive payment stuff so you don't have to. Your website never sees or stores credit card numbers.

Postwachstum / Degrowth

An economic philosophy that questions the need for constant growth. In web terms: don't use more infrastructure than you need. Don't run a server 24/7 for a blog that could be static files. Don't pay WooCommerce for 6 products. Build only what matters — for both the blog and the shop.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

A standard format that lets people subscribe to your content updates. When you publish a new editorial, RSS readers (like Feedly) pick it up automatically. Nuxt Content generates RSS feeds out of the box. Good for editorial reach without relying on social media algorithms.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The practice of making your website rank well in Google. Fast pages, proper headings, clean URLs, and mobile-friendliness all help. Static Nuxt sites are excellent for SEO because they're fast and their HTML is clean.

Server

A computer that's always on, always connected to the internet, waiting to respond to visitors. Your current site needs one for both the blog and the shop. Solution 3 eliminates the need entirely — static files for the blog, Stripe for the shop. See the «No Server» section above.

SSG (Static Site Generation)

The process of building all your web pages in advance — both editorial pages and shop pages — so they're ready to serve instantly. Instead of generating a page every time someone visits, the page already exists as a file. It's the difference between baking bread fresh for every customer vs. having loaves ready on the shelf.

SSR (Server-Side Rendering)

A technique where a server builds the web page on the fly each time someone visits. Faster than a traditional CMS setup, but still requires a running server. We're recommending SSG instead — no server needed at all.

Stripe

The world's largest online payment processor. It handles credit cards, subscriptions, invoices, and customer portals. You don't pay a monthly fee — Stripe takes 2.9% + CHF 0.30 per transaction. It supports TWINT in Switzerland. Think of it as a digital cash register that runs itself.

Stripe Billing

Stripe's subscription management system. It handles recurring payments, plan changes, cancellations, and invoices automatically. Perfect for your magazine subscription (6 issues/year). Customers can manage their own subscription through Stripe's Customer Portal.

Stripe Checkout

A pre-built, secure payment page hosted by Stripe. When someone clicks «Buy» on your site, they're redirected to this page to enter their payment details. It handles shipping addresses, tax, and payment methods (including TWINT). You don't build or maintain it — Stripe does.

Static Site

A website made up of pre-built files (HTML, CSS, images) that don't change until you rebuild them. No database, no server-side code running. Your editorials and shop pages are all pre-built. Incredibly fast, secure, and cheap to host (usually free).

Tailwind CSS

A modern approach to styling websites. Instead of writing custom CSS files, you apply small utility classes directly to elements. It keeps things consistent and makes design changes quick. This site uses Tailwind CSS.

TWINT

Switzerland's mobile payment system. Stripe supports TWINT as a payment method in Stripe Checkout, so your customers can pay with their phone just like they would at Migros.

Vue.js

A JavaScript framework for building user interfaces. It's what powers the interactive parts of a Nuxt site. Open source, widely used, and well-documented. Think of it as the engine inside the Nuxt car.

WooCommerce

A WordPress plugin that turns your site into an online shop. It's powerful — designed for stores with hundreds or thousands of products. For a magazine with 6 products, a lighter tool would do the same job with less overhead.

WordPress

The world's most popular website platform, powering ~40% of all websites. Currently running both your blog (~490 editorials) and your shop (6 products). It requires a server, regular updates, and grows in complexity as plugins are added — which is normal for any system that's been running for a while.

wp-json / REST API

The interface WordPress provides for other software to read your content. Visit schon.ch/wp-json/wp/v2/posts and you'll see your editorial posts in a machine-readable format. We used this to analyze your content and plan the migration.