Just to clarify a few points from the discussion:
Wappler uses EJS natively, which makes it a great fit for building dynamic sites with templating logic similar to Dreamweaver’s legacy system. With NodeJS and Express, you can define reusable layout regions—headers, footers, navbars—using EJS, and Wappler handles this seamlessly. It’s a modern, server-side approach that keeps your content modular and maintainable.
I’ve deployed NodeJS-based sites across half a dozen hosts without paying anything extra. Most shared and cloud hosts now support Node environments out of the box, so cost and compatibility are rarely blockers.
That said, for static sites, there’s a clean alternative: Web Components and Custom Elements. These let you define reusable HTML tags—like <site-navbar>—that encapsulate markup, style, and behavior. Once registered, you can drop them into any page like native elements. It’s a declarative, browser-native way to maintain consistency across static pages without server-side logic.
As for the Wappler YouTube extension I created, it does require NodeJS to function—it leverages server-side logic to deliver dynamic embedding and customization. However, the same core functionality—embedding and reusing YouTube videos across pages—can be achieved using Web Components and Custom Elements in a static site. By defining a custom tag like <youtube-video>, you can encapsulate the embed logic and styling once, then reuse it declaratively across your pages.
Please have a look at
Client-Side alternative to Server-Side Includes - Docs / How-to Guides - Wappler Community