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Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#11

Post by djsumdog »

w1ntermute wrote: post #7

Write the posts on a self-hosted site, then syndicate them to Medium and share those links on social media. Another option is to use a custom domain with Medium[0]. That way, if Medium goes out of business, you could just set up a self-hosted replacement blog with redirects for the URLs for the posts you made on Medium. 0: https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/213474588

Highly recommend buying a domain. You can always point it to a new hosting provider.

You can also buy managed Ghost, WordPress, etc for not that much. I think both pro accounts allow custom domains and exporting.

If you're a developer, or comfortable with code, static web site generation (Hugo, Jekyll, middleman, etc) might be an option too.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#12

Post by aorth »

I believe that self hosting is more inline with open source software principles. Even if it weren't, self hosting gives you control over your content—remember, nothing is really "free." Self hosting takes a bit more time and effort but if you use a static site generator like Hugo or Pelican then the process is more simple.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#13

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

I see a lot of answers saying "use both". Do you guys mean "Write the posts on a self-hosted site, then syndicate them to Medium and share those links on social media", as w1ntermute said?

I'm curious how you can use both. if you have two sites and share both links, what links would people share? Doesn't this make it more confusing for sharers?

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#14

Post by confounded »

aorth wrote: post #12

I believe that self hosting is more inline with open source software principles. Even if it weren't, self hosting gives you control over your content—remember, nothing is really "free." Self hosting takes a bit more time and effort but if you use a static site generator like Hugo or Pelican then the process is more simple.

Another advantage is that you can allow interested readers a full RSS feed. Medium's is just the title and a link, which puts me off subscribing to blogs there.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#15

Post by straws »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #13

I see a lot of answers saying "use both". Do you guys mean "Write the posts on a self-hosted site, then syndicate them to Medium and share those links on social media", as w1ntermute said? I'm curious how you can use both. if you have two sites and share both links, what links would people share? Doesn't this make it more confusing for sharers?

https://github.com/aarongustafson/jekyll-crosspost-to-medium is a fair option if you have a Jekyll blog. Many static site generators include an idea of "publishing targets", and often include an easy way of making plugins.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#16

Post by Zren »

If you don't mind all "" in your code blocks getting turned into unicode open/close quotes, and the lack of a markdown editor, then sure. Tab also doesn't indent. You can't use `code tags` for variables. Pre tags (code blocks) create a new paragraph instead of a line break (
). So basically not a programming blog. You can create a gist and paste the link, but that's a terrible workaround.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#18

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

straws wrote: post #15
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #13

I see a lot of answers saying "use both". Do you guys mean "Write the posts on a self-hosted site, then syndicate them to Medium and share those links on social media", as w1ntermute said? I'm curious how you can use both. if you have two sites and share both links, what links would people share? Doesn't this make it more confusing for sharers?

https://github.com/aarongustafson/jekyll-crosspost-to-medium is a fair option if you have a Jekyll blog. Many static site generators include an idea of "publishing targets", and often include an easy way of making plugins.

Thank you, but I was more asking about how you would manage cross posting in terms of sharing, not in terms of technicality.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#19

Post by Insanity »

I would self host. Maybe crosspost to Medium as others have suggested here. Alternatively I do think github pages like has been mentioned is good if you do not want to set up your own blog (even though it really is not that hard).

The reason I would not just post on Medium is simply because you are depend on them. What if Medium at some point shuts down, you lose all your content.

Re: Ask HN: Should I blog on Medium for my open-source project, or self-host?

#20

Post by jumasheff »

If you like hacking things yourself (with React), I'd recommend to host your blog on Github Pages. Take a look at my (in progress) blog [1] and its code[2]. It uses 'Single Page Apps for GitHub Pages' [3] and renders markdown (needs some tweaking).

1. https://jumasheff.github.io/ 2. https://github.com/jumasheff/jumasheff.github.io 3. https://github.com/rafrex/spa-github-pages/

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