Gatsby is the static-site generator built on React that pioneered the GraphQL-driven content model in 2017. At its peak (2019-2021) it was the default choice for marketing sites, blogs, and e-commerce frontends built with React. The 5.x release modernized the build pipeline and introduced server-side rendering and incremental builds.
The category has been displaced for new projects by Next.js (which absorbed most of Gatsby's features) and Astro (which is faster for content-heavy sites). Gatsby still has a loyal user base in the existing fleet and a strong plugin ecosystem, but most teams in 2026 are not picking it for new work.
