Netlify is a cloud platform for building, deploying, and scaling modern web projects — particularly those following the Jamstack architecture (JavaScript, APIs, and Markup). It connects directly to Git repositories, automates CI/CD builds, and distributes sites across a global edge CDN on every push. The platform's key insight is that by pre-building and pre-serving as much content as possible at the network edge, developers avoid managing servers entirely while still powering dynamic experiences through serverless functions and edge compute. Understanding where each Netlify primitive (functions, edge functions, blobs, redirects) fits in the request-processing order is essential for using the platform effectively.
What This Cheat Sheet Covers
This topic spans 20 focused tables and 185 indexed concepts. Below is a complete table-by-table outline of this topic, spanning foundational concepts through advanced details.
Table 1: Core Platform Concepts and Jamstack Architecture
Netlify's architecture is built around the principle that serving pre-built static assets from a global CDN beats running application servers for most workloads — dynamic logic is added through APIs and serverless compute instead of traditional backend servers. These core concepts define how Netlify positions itself in the modern web ecosystem.
| Concept | Example | Description |
|---|---|---|
Site = static HTML built from React + API calls at run time | Architecture pattern: JavaScript, APIs, and Markup — pre-built files served from CDN, dynamic logic via APIs and serverless functions. | |
All files for a deploy go live simultaneously | • Each deploy is an immutable, all-or-nothing snapshot • the CDN switches from old to new version instantly with no partial states | |
New deploy live in seconds, old cache gone | When a new deploy goes live, Netlify invalidates the CDN cache for all changed files immediately — no stale-content window. | |
Site served from nearest of 100+ PoPs worldwide | • Static assets are distributed across Netlify's edge network • requests are routed to the geographically closest node automatically | |
Push to main → build → deploy | • Netlify links to a Git repo • every push triggers a build and deploy with no manual steps needed |