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Comment by lordnacho | Hacker News Reader

I've wanted to start a blog. What's the simplest way to do it?

All I can find online is those marketing articles. HN Brain must have some better advice.

For a programmer, the absolutely simplest solution is (likely) using Github pages + Jekyll Now:

  - to set the blog up, fork the Jekyll Now repository, and configure it to serve GH Pages

  - to add a new article, just add a markdown file to the repository, and push it

That's all. Of course, styling is an entirely different topic :)

I would recommend Hugo over Jekyll. It seems a bit more modern and user friendly, at least for me it was easier to set up and customize.

I'd say for a Ruby programmer. I've tried installing Jekyll on Ubuntu multiple times and every time it ended up in disaster following fights with Ruby/rbenv/gem/bundler/Jekyll itself.

Github pages is a fantastic way to get a static blog up and running. I use Zola instead of Jekyll to have a little more control over the look/feel/etc and have an automatic RSS feed.

To clarify to some of the replies:

"Forking Jekyll Now" is a different concept from "Using Jekyll".

"Jekyll Now" is a preconfigured repository for a blog, that can be used straight away (after configuring the author and blog name in the configuration file, of course).

This is probably an extremely simple way to publish a blog; using bare Jekyll and configuring a blog from scratch is definitely much more work, and I don't classify it as "simplest solution".

I have a ten year old blog that no one has read but myself in 9 years.

Keeping a journal has a ton of value, people have known this for a long time.

You could just buy a notebook and pen at Walmart for $2 and start writing down your thoughts.

I can't think of a bigger waste of time at this point though than to start writing down your thoughts with the only intention of monetization. If you don't care about other people reading your thoughts, things become really simple.

I love Mataroa, the blog platform. It allows you to easily export all of your content and is very small to load. No ads, no tracking. It's free to use, although 9 USD/year brings a couple of premiums.

I've written a blog post about Mataroa: https://pivic.blog/blog/mataroa/

I write my blog using Hugo, it is rather simple to use - just a folder of markdown files.

For publishing, I use netlify (which does the build and hosting). Their free tier is more than enough for me. The domain comes from namecheap.

What's the current (2022) take on Hugo vs. Jekyll? I'm also wondering if Github Pages is a good alternative for hosting. Judging from their description, it seems to be free, without ads and can optionally be used with a custom domain.

I have only used Jekyll in the past but I would try Hugo nowadays since it's the "brand new stuff" (only because it's written in Go). Jekyll hasn't been abandoned which means that both are good and I'm sure they have the same set of features.

As for using GitHub to host it, it's still free and you can use a custom domain which is nice.

> Hugo vs. Jekyll

They both work and it's unlikely that either will limit you. Just pick one (I recommend flipping a coin) and go.

I have been using Hugo, Vercel, and a custom domain for my blog. I have found Hugo + Vercel to work well together. I can't speak for how it compares to Jekyll, but Hugo has been fairly good to work in. I like the development story quite a bit once you get over the initial hump of getting everything setup. I also use Vercel to manage the custom domain, which I consider a bonus.

I strongly second this. It took me some time to learn the first time set up. But it's been well worth it. Now all it takes to post something is write on a plain text file -> git commit the updated folder.

The simplest I saw, install Standard Notes (https://standardnotes.com/ - open source, free) encrypted notes app, write something, then publish it via the interface. It will create you a blog on their https://listed.to/ webpage

Just use wordpress.com until you've found your rhythm. You can explore other technical solutions later.

The most important question is what posting workflow do you want?

If you want to post only from your computer, then you can go with any of the thousands of static-site generators that are available out there.

If you're OK with posting by pushing a git commit on a repository, then you can post from multiple machines provided that you set up all the actions or CI/CD pipelines to make it work. Some people love setups like this, but it is not for me.

If you want to spend more time writing than fiddling with your blogging system, you can go with a ready-made one such as Wordpress, Ghost, Write.As, Blogger, etc. Usually they have both SaaS and self-hosted versions. Keeping a self-hosted Wordpress safe requires constant attention to updates.

I wrote about how my own blog works[1][2], which is a setup that I don't really recommend for those that just want something simple.

If I were you, I'd invest in a VPS and self-host something. If your objective is blogging for the long run, then you need to own your own platform. SaaS come and go, they change, your data need to be under your control if you're gonna do it for years to come.

[1]: https://andregarzia.com/2022/05/How-this-blog-works-or-embra...

[2]: https://andregarzia.com/2022/05/Got-metaWeblog-API-working-w...

Search HN history, I remember that question being asked on here recently, more than once. Quite a few recent ones here:

e.g. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...

It really depends on what you define as "simple".

- For some it might be writing HTML and CSS directly and upload the files to some server via FTP.

- For others it would be using a static site generator, and uploading the files via FTP or hooking up a git repo that builds deploys automatically.

- There are hosted blogging services that provide a GUI, hosting and other affordances.

- There are services that are part aggregator part blogging platforms, similar to the above but with social media bells and whistles.

All of the above can essentially be hosted for free or very cheap. Alternatively you can host them yourself which is more involved.

IMO for the tech savvy the second option is likely the most attractive and productive (SSG + git), the third option (blogging platform) is great if you want a GUI and an all-in-one experience that includes hosting. The fourth if you like social network stuff. The first is fast for starting out and can transition into the second down the line if needed.

If you want an alternative to Wordpress, I’ve had success running a simple kotlin script that converts google docs into webpages.

Here’s the hackernews discussion around that: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23134101

This is the code I run in a cron job: https://gitlab.com/BenWiser/googledocsblog

You do however need a server and your own domain.

Seems like you could get away with using an object store and a serverless function for this. Not sure how pricing would compare to a server, but seems doable.

I've used bearblog.dev in the past and it seemed to do a good job. Otherwise you could use a static site generator like Hugo or something if your willing to do it a bit more manually. Or even just plain HTML/CSS (could even go without the CSS), which has always seemed like a nice idea to me.

I’ve been using blot.im It’s not free, but it’s cheap and the workflow really works for me.

You keep the files in markdown in a Dropbox folder, and the blot service uses the files to update your blog. This makes it easy to use my preferred editors on my phone, iPad, and windows or Linux desktop pretty seamlessly.

For ease of starting, I recommend Blogger - https://www.blogger.com/

But I switched to hosting my own static blog with an always-on port-forwarded computer, Pelican and Isso.

i self host a ghost blog https://ghost.org/docs/install/

The simplest way would be to buy a domain and use a Wordpress hosting website.

What I enjoyed more was writing my own blogging engine and renting a cheap VPS. :)

wordpress.com?

The best route is either to roll your own or go with a service like Ghost. Sure, you'll have to pay hosting, but you're not going to have shitty ads run on your blog.

Substack seems to be a decent technology; the problem is that it's owned by Y Combinator, which means it can't be trusted--if you piss off whoever's running YC at the time, you can be suddenly banned and have your data stolen.

I agree. If you want to start a blog use something like Wordpress to get going. If you want to mess around with tech and never actually write anything because you're having too much fun trying out half a dozen static site generators, I like Jekyll.

I think I caught some splash damage off this comment, haha

I settled on Hugo myself

Wordpress is not a bad alternative.

Personally I would go with Hugo though. The main reasons for that: a) Native Markdown support – you can store your blog posts in a Git repo. b) Much much easier to write a custom theme for Hugo than for Wordpress.

The CMS part of Wordpress is quite good!

You can use Wordpress (self hosted) as a CMS for a static site with the right plugin.

There are downsides if you do this the free way; anything dynamic stops working if it was a WP module (forms, search etcetera). However, if it's a basic blog, it'll work just fine. SimplyStatic does have a paid version that supports search, and if you need low-volume forms you could probably use JotForm or similar in JS/HTML embed/iframe mode.

Before I switched to static export of WP, I had OTP auth enabled for both the admin and editor accounts. That hasn't changed. I also use a webp plugin that rewrites all image elements (in posts at least) to picture elements; browsers can then pick between the original JPEG or the converted-to-WEBP image. Static export respects this element rewrite.

To enable static exporting, I

* migrated the live site to a new subdomain, * added the Simply Static plugin, * configured SS to not go near wp-uploads - I don't want to double my disk usage, * configured nginx to alias the wp-uploads from the dynamic subdomain to the static site, * configured nginx to HTTP-auth protect the dynamic site - belt/braces approach on top of the existing OTP auth.

I don't care much about publishing from the Wordpress app on my phone, so the HTTP auth hasn't been a problem for me.

Publishing is "create new post, review it on dynamic site, open the SS generate page, click button". It could be automated, but it doesn't bother me enough to do that.

A side-effect is that the blog is never down due to things like Wordpress upgrades (ie, the maintenance page that shows up), because it's not actually powered by WP.

It sounds and looks ideal but it can get costly if you want to do anything non-standard. And by non-standard I mean something as simple as adding a ConvertKit newsletter signup form to your blog, at which point you need a business package that cost non trivial $.

I used to recommend Wordpress.com. I don't anymore. Self hosted Wordpress has its own issues. Even with no plugins, you still have a very real prospect of malware finding its way onto your site if you don't keep everything fully up to date.

Only if you have a budget for the blog or don't mind displaying random ads to your audience.

Any one of the hosted blogging providers would be the simplest.

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