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Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

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Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#41

Post by thekyle »

susam wrote: post #34

If you like writing Python code, I recommend https://github.com/sunainapai/makesite (makesite.py). As the README says, it is a simple, lightweight, and magic-free static blog generator. The entire static blog generator code is in a single file named makesite.py. Add your content to the `content` directory. Then run `python3 makesite.py` to generate the static blog. It writes the generated blog to the `_site` director…

> This project has been written by my wife.

Aww... That's so sweet.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#42

Post by bishalb »

dceddia wrote: post #32

To avoid updates and viruses, go with a static site. There are a ton of good static site generators out there. My blog[0] runs on Jekyll[1]. Hugo[2] is a popular option. I've fiddled with Gatsby[3] and heard good things. Eleventy[4] looks as close to Jekyll-but-in-JavaScript as I've seen. Since you want to be able to customize it, I'd probably take the static site generator's language into account. Do you like... Rub…

Static blogs are ok until it's a smallish blog with not much content or many visitors. But can't recommend it for a serious blog proect. One would have to jump through the hoops and use hacks for even the basic things like commenting, searching etc. And forget about slightly advanced stuff like popular posts, related posts etc without some Hugo or Jekyll hacking. WordPress has the lowest barrier to entry as most shared hosts offer one click installs, is the most feature rich blogging platform and even for a complete noob, it is much easier to get started and even customize their blog to a great extent with plugins. I would also like to add that virus affecting WordPress is much of a myth now, WordPress has improved greatly in the recent years and if you just stick with the basic install and just install the reputable plugins, you should be fine. The hacking cases related to WordPress are very few and far between.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#43

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

dceddia wrote: post #32

To avoid updates and viruses, go with a static site. There are a ton of good static site generators out there. My blog[0] runs on Jekyll[1]. Hugo[2] is a popular option. I've fiddled with Gatsby[3] and heard good things. Eleventy[4] looks as close to Jekyll-but-in-JavaScript as I've seen. Since you want to be able to customize it, I'd probably take the static site generator's language into account. Do you like... Rub…

Do people write their own static site generators because they're bored, or because templating is always annoying and it's more fun to write your own than learn a new system?

None of them do anything novel, or particularly better than all the others. They just have some quirk that makes people choose them. "This one is a static binary!" "This one uses a specific programming language!" "This one uses a unique templating language!"

Would having a dedicated, generic standard for templating even be possible? Something with extra standards for specific uses, so you could just learn the extensions that are useful for your particular application? Maybe that would eliminate the need for 1,000 identical-but-incompatible solutions.

After a while, what you actually want is a CMS, but the good ones usually are not free.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#45

Post by save_ferris »

edude03 wrote: post #40
pknopf wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Gatsby is one of the worst products I have ever worked with. The code itself isn't bad, but the tech stack and UX is horrible. It's the epitome of hipster JavaScript. I'm amazed that they got funding for it...

I hate to be negative about products others have built as I tend to believe that if it "sucks" it's because I'm not the target audience. That said, I am happy to hear I'm not the only one with this sentiment.

I’m the same way, but there’s a big difference between using a technology that’s not designed for your use case and using a technology that just sucks, and frankly gatsby is the latter. It in no way outshines any other major static site generator available today.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#46

Post by bishalb »

gexla wrote: post #39

If you have a gun pointed to your head with the requirements you have listed then you go Wordpress. Updates aren't difficult. I'm not sure about plugins (I haven't used WP in a long time,) but you can set the core Wordpress updates to be automatic. It will handle everything you need. If after a week of coding you arrive to the weekend and think "I want to do a bunch more coding" then you go with a static site generat…

Exactly. Outside of the nerd bubble of HN, Wordpress is still the defacto choice for a blogging platform. Nothing comes close to WordPress in terms of customization freedom and "zero to deploy".

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#47

Post by bishalb »

nstart wrote: post #31

Highly recommend the ghost platform. It gets out of your way and lets you focus on writing. Nothing else. You can customize it as much as you want but it's primary focus is getting you to writing first. This is assuming you are willing to pay for at least your own server. Their hosted option is also great and highly recommended if you want to just start writing before thinking of customizations. I find static site ge…

Does Ghost support commenting yet? Can't imagine a blog without a commenting feature.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#48

Post by bishalb »

arkitaip wrote: post #10

WordPress all the way. I genuinely think it's the self-hosted solution that offers the best combination of control, flexibility and ease-of-use. You just need a couple of plugins for performance and safety and you are set [0]. There are literally tens of thousands of themes - open source and commercial - that you can try out in a matter of minutes instead of wasting days or weeks designing your own theme. You rarely…

For any serious blogging project, WordPress is by far the best choice, nothing comes close in terms of features, ease of use and ease of customization. I would also add contact form 7 to the list.

Re: Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform

#49

Post by Teichopsia »

Recently I looked into the landscape to see what I felt comfortable with.

tl;dr: I ended up using eleventy with tailwindcss.

It depends what you are comfortable with...

There are a few blogging sites (their names escape me at the moment but are similar to https://write.as) that seemed interesting. Again, I did a quick search but couldn't find the one I had in mind.

My preference is python, so naturally I looked there first. I can't remember what happened to pelican, why I didn't go for it. Nikola seemed nice until I started reading the documentation. I also looked at some that were further down static gens list. But something was missing.

Jekyll has great documentation, but there are a lot of moving pieces. You can make it into a full fledge website that has a blog, or make it into a blog - quite easily. It seems that whoever states that Jekyll is geared towards creating a blog..... who knows why?!

Played around with Hugo last year and meh...

Now, I don't know how much looking into different ssg influenced the ease it was to pick up eleventy, but it just made sense. It's a bare bones static site generator that - just works. There are several blog posts that will get you up and running quickly. There are several skeleton GitHub repos, some use tailwindCSS, some have netlify Cms already configured, some are plain. Or you can just build your own.

Another I picked it, which is on a personal level. Since it's such a well structured, bare-bone project, its helping me learn/practice JavaScript and it's ecosystem. npm scripts is all you need.

All the other tools, gatsby, etc - are great if you already understand react. And even if you don't but are interested - I got the impression (gatsby at least) that it's documentation was good and you could learn a great deal about react going through it. Maybe, I don't know.

Finally... I feel that some projects could do with an overhaul, at least with their documentation. Some parts felt like an afterthought instead of one cohesive, linear explanation. Not an easy task in the least, but what is?

But more importantly, pick one thing and stick to it (unless it proves to be hindering productivity).

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