[chanux]

The server part in Octopress (and other static site generators are there just for convenience and to and see how it really works when you host the site I guess.)

[MeyerDumont]

Not sure, If you don't run the server you can't see anything because often the templating is done by the server

[rajeevk]

The Octopress generates static html. No templating at server side. You can host output html to any static host like github pages.