r/statichosting

following up on my last post about search on static sites, i started looking more closely at the search index itself. my first thought was to generate a json file containing the site's content and search it with javascript. that seems reasonable for a small collection of articles, but sending the entire index to every visitor could become wasteful as the content grows.

i found out that tools like pagefind can split the index into chunks and load the relevant parts when someone searches, without needing a dedicated search server. for those whove implemented search on static sites, how do you decide which approach is appropriate? is a simple json index usually enough for smaller proj, or is worth using something like pagefind from the start?

ive mostly build smaller sites where navigation is enough to help visitors find things. but ive been wondering what happens when a site grows into a documentation portal or a large collection of articles. one approach ive come across is generating a search index at build time and searching it in the browser. that avoids needing a dedicated search backend but i imagine the index itself can become a problem as the content grows.

for those whove build content-heavy sites how do you decide when client-side search is still sufficient and when its worth using a hosted search device or a dedicated backend?