11–20 of 377 posts
Another reason I host my own articles is that Medium is very heavy to load. Yes their design is great, but it's something that is achievable with a very small amount of CSS. This might not matter for a lot of people but I don't like how slow their platform is.
They all load almost instantly.
Again: STOP OPENING POPUPS WHEN I'M SELECTING TEXT!
Kirby and other similar PHP based flat file CMS software is super easy to run. If I were to get back into making sites for people, I'd just use Kirby, Bulma/Tailwind, and Alpine.js. It can run on shared hosts like Siteground, Lithium, Green Geeks, Hostgator, as well as VPS platforms like Digital Ocean. The admin interface for making new posts is great, separating it from static site generators. It uses a modified Mar…
But, software like Grav and presumably also Kirby are very much not easy to run for 'normal' people. They would need to secure hosting without getting overwhelmed with the technical details or all the upselling that providers try to do, then install the software which is 'easy' but not 'click this button and you're done' easy, and of course also deal with domains and DNS etc. A hosted solution - even if you have to pay for it - is the only practical solution for normal people.
That said, for the type of people that read HN I would highly recommend Grav. Installation is easy, it has a nice web-based interface for administration and writing posts, it is fast, and it is not the latest trendy static site generator. It is a boring PHP application that will probably keep working for 20 years with no changes required - but is still actively maintained and will be for the foreseeable future.
There's one thing I want to scream at every front-end developer out there: STOP OPENING POPUPS WHEN I'M SELECTING TEXT! Again: STOP OPENING POPUPS WHEN I'M SELECTING TEXT!
Kirby and other similar PHP based flat file CMS software is super easy to run. If I were to get back into making sites for people, I'd just use Kirby, Bulma/Tailwind, and Alpine.js. It can run on shared hosts like Siteground, Lithium, Green Geeks, Hostgator, as well as VPS platforms like Digital Ocean. The admin interface for making new posts is great, separating it from static site generators. It uses a modified Mar…
This is amazing. I didn't want to really do HTML5 and create a new html file per post.
Use webflow, ghost or whatever you like, but wordpress is good enough for most people.
HN audience can likely handle their own, but if ease-of-setup is an issue - I created StartABlog.com to help people do this (and we'll actually set up your site for you for free - https://startablog.com/start).
Own your platform. Own your content. Own your voice. Use everything else as distribution methods - not core dependencies.
There's one thing I want to scream at every front-end developer out there: STOP OPENING POPUPS WHEN I'M SELECTING TEXT! Again: STOP OPENING POPUPS WHEN I'M SELECTING TEXT!
Kirby and other similar PHP based flat file CMS software is super easy to run. If I were to get back into making sites for people, I'd just use Kirby, Bulma/Tailwind, and Alpine.js. It can run on shared hosts like Siteground, Lithium, Green Geeks, Hostgator, as well as VPS platforms like Digital Ocean. The admin interface for making new posts is great, separating it from static site generators. It uses a modified Mar…
It's telling that Medium stopped allowing custom domains. Their brand over yours, and no way of cleanly migrating elsewhere when they start log-in walls etc. (Of course their brand is now kinda poisoned by "log-in wall" and lots of low-quality "think-pieces", so you don't really want to be associated with theirs - which was somewhat different when Medium started)
Another reason I host my own articles is that Medium is very heavy to load. Yes their design is great, but it's something that is achievable with a very small amount of CSS. This might not matter for a lot of people but I don't like how slow their platform is.