When you visit a website, you are asking that particular web server to send you an HTML page. You have a choice of how the server will deliver that page. If the page is going to be the same for everyone all of the time, you will probably post a static page. This means that the HTML that is sent to the browser is the same as the HTML in the file, so the server sends the file directly to the web browser.

However, if the web server adds information into the page before it gets sent to the web browser, then your web page is dynamic. You may want the server to add the date, or a person's name, or products you have on sale this week. All of these scenarios mean that the HTML sent to the web browser is dynamically assembled by the server first.

In the example below, the static page represents information that will not change depending on the time of day or who visits the site. The dynamic page can greet a returning member and even make recommendations (highlighted in yellow).

There are quite a few web application products to choose from for creating dynamic pages. When you shop for a web-hosting company, check to see if it offers any dynamic functionality. Some of the most popular languages are:

PHP: free, open source
JSP: Java Server Pages, by Sun Microsystems
CFM: ColdFusion, by Macromedia
ASP: Active Server Pages, by Microsoft

Now that we see how pages can be static or dynamic, there are two places the "dynamic" part can happen. It can happen on the server (as the example above demonstrates), or it can happen in the browser after the HTML is received from the server.

See our Client Side vs. Server Side page.