There is way too much ceremony.
Another thing I like is how they leverage GraphQL. I am not a fan to use it as a back end language but for a query tool existing only on the front it all makes sense and it's really effective. You can easily build query to generate all kind of pages and contents automatically. And that from all kind of sources (markdown, CSV).
There are many other great stuff like their source/transform plugin to be able to query on any (if the plugin is made) source.[1] Or having to only learn 2 API call (onCreateNode, onCreatePage) and GraphQL to start to do many of the biggest things... Or I can talk about how when building the project Gatsby makes all the call to any headless CMS to retrieve all the data to leverage them while still being able to create a static website at the same time...[2]
Finally Netlify provides a dead simple way to host your project. You just need to create an account and link your Github repo on their platform and every time your master will change your website will be automatically deployed. Ho and it's free...
[1] https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/source-plugin-tutorial/
[2] https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/wordpress-source-plugin-tutori...
Gatsby tries to balance making your site work at some level offline w/ not precaching too much.
By default we cache the front page & then do "run-time" caching as the user visits different pages so ensuring they can at least return to the pages they've visited when offline.
I'm deep down the Vue.JS rabbit hole and can really appreciate this stuff
Out the box reactJS with the best practices already? maybe next project!