I'm interested in creating a primarily static site using Next.js, but I also need the ability to provide customers with price estimates based on their specifications. The calculation process needs to be kept private and not exposed to anyone else (otherwise, I would have used plain javascript). I assume that I'll need some kind of server listener to handle requests and respond with the calculated price.
I currently use Host-Europe's Webbuilder pack and have SSH access. Setting up WordPress was as simple as copying over the files and linking the domain to the WordPress folder in Host-Europe's admin panel.
My main queries are:
- Can I easily add this functionality to a static website framework, or should I consider switching to a server-side rendering framework like WordPress, React, Django?
- Do I need a background process listening for requests? How can I trigger a server-side function via JavaScript and retrieve the response?
- Why wasn't a daemon process necessary for WordPress to function? Could Host-Europe be handling this in the background?
If I opt for a framework, I'd prefer either Node/JavaScript or Python, but I'm open to anything that gets the job done efficiently. While I've built a static blog hosted on GitHub Pages before, I feel slightly lost when it comes to more advanced tasks.