What's a good alternative to say the Wordpress personal plan? (note: its a goodness of heart type thing for others so low cost is important)
You should be more specific about what you're trying to achieve.
Any alternative must have a hosted option, I'm not playing admin for something that already takes up a lot of my time, as I said out of the goodness of my heart and wallet.
The best I can say for wordpress is that myself, other contributors and our commenters tolerate it, though quite often it leans towards hate it. I've yet to hear anyone say they love it hence the ask.
Take your pick of commenting platforms from this 2021 thread: