Simply Static Takes Hours? Yeah It Does.

Let’s call it what it is: Simply Static is the most popular plugin for turning your WordPress site into static HTML.

But it’s painfully slow.

Not kind of slow. Not “go grab a coffee” slow.

We’re talking full-on, come back in a half-day slow.

And when it’s done, after all of that time, the results aren’t fully accurate.

Like, We’re Not Making This Up

This is feedback we hear daily from developers, agencies, and site owners who tried to make Simply Static part of a real workflow… and failed.

Why Simply Static Is So Damn Slow

1. It Uses wp_remote_get() Serially

Simply Static renders static HTML by making HTTP requests back to your own site for every single page using WordPress’s wp_remote_get() function.

• Pages are fetched one-by-one
• Each fetch waits for the previous to finish
• It runs on the main PHP thread with timeouts looming
• You’re rendering your dynamic site… just to make it static

2. No Real Concurrency

Simply Static doesn’t support true concurrency. Every request is handled sequentially. There’s no parallelism, no queuing strategy, no batching logic. Just one page after the other like it’s 2007.

3. No Incremental Logic

Change one blog post? Too bad. Simply Static rebuilds your entire site. There’s no dependency awareness. No post-template linkage. No smart rebuilds. It’s brute force or nothing.

Sure there are some options to try to do single pages, but they’re clumsy at best.

4. Asset Handling Takes Ages

Our hypothesis is this is the real hold up. Yes, if you’re going Static you need to ingest the assets. But, we’ve proven that can be done rather quickly.

Meanwhile, Headless Hostman Uses CURL MULTI, Batches, and Smarter Controls

We heard the complaints. And we built something better.

CURL MULTI = True Parallel Requests

Instead of fetching one page at a time, Headless Hostman uses curl_multi_init() to batch and fire off dozens of requests in parallel. It’s like going from dial-up to fiber.

• Pages render simultaneously
• Network and render time are separated
• No crawling—direct, internal rendering

Batch Size Optimization

We adjust concurrency in real-time based on what your site can handle on our server infrastructure. 10 pages at once? 50? 100? We scale to the metal — automatically.

Intelligent Incremental Builds

Only changed content gets rebuilt, at your command:

1. Push the Entire Site
2. Push by Post Type
3. Push the Entire Site by last modified only
4. Push one page
5. Map other pages to push when that one page pushes
6. Trigger a certain page to auto-push once daily, twice daily, hourly, every five minutes, or every minute

Smart Asset Handling

We keep a tab on all assets pushed Static.

The next time? We skip those and only ingest the new ones.

Having an issue? You can clear that cache.

More Than Static WordPress

We mastered converting your WordPress site to Static, so we kept going.

We offer the most-feature-robust Static platform for WordPress in the market today.

Built-In Form Support without Sacrifice

From Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7 to Ninja Forms and more, our platform ensures your forms work out of the box. Smart serverless endpoints and optional native connections keep file uploads, notifications, and interactivity running smoothly.

Works with 99.9% of Plugins and Themes Without Any Additional Set Up

No matter your setup—Gutenberg, Elementor, or fully custom—Headless Hostman adapts. Our system intelligently parses your design and functionality with near-total plugin compatibility. Explore compatibility details.

Blazing Speed + Smart Web Vitals Optimization

Lightning-fast rendering is just the beginning. Our Performance Suite goes further to boost your Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals scores without plugin bloat:

• Extracts critical CSS for faster first paint
• Defers non-essential stylesheets
• Eliminates unnecessary Gutenberg styling
• Lazy-loads media intelligently
• Preloads key images
• Converts CSS backgrounds to <img> tags when needed
• Injects width and height for all images
• Minifies HTML and strips excess whitespace
• Defers visibility for below-the-fold content

Always-On Monitoring and Real-Time Alerts

Don’t let invisible issues cost you traffic. Our diagnostics panel keeps a constant pulse on vital files (like sitemaps and robots.txt) and flags errors immediately—whether from browser updates or backend quirks.

Real Support. Real Platform. No Compromises.

Headless Hostman isn’t just another DIY tool. We pair powerful infrastructure with white-glove support, step-by-step onboarding, and responsive troubleshooting—right from your dashboard. If something goes wrong, we’re already working on it.

We’ve talked to real customers who literally set alarms to check if their Simply Static build was done. One called it “watching paint dry, if the paint sometimes exploded halfway through.”

“It’s like flipping a switch. The build is just done.”

— Agency Owner, now sleeping better

“I used to avoid updating content because of the export time. Not anymore.”

— WP Dev, finally free of plugin purgatory

Test our Metal

Simply Static isn’t evil. It’s just outdated.

Headless Hostman is the evolution: faster, scalable, and ready for modern deployment workflows.