htmly VS WordPress

I can recommend HTMLy https://www.htmly.com/

You should give https://www.htmly.com/ a try.

Another flat-file blog I tried is HTMLy, by default it has a content type Image post which is basically what you're looking for.

I rarely tend to go outside the wordpress.org directories for plugins/themes because of malware. Anyone can register a domain, download most popular plugins and add malware, offer them all for free or cheaper prices. Which does happen.

My preference is to use Wordpress, since it makes it pretty easy to keep the site updated on a regular basis and requires a minimum amount of web-fu. Site templates for Wordpress are very easy to find. You have to find a provider to host the site, but it's not that difficult.

It doesn't even use proper mysql database drivers. What looks like prepared statements, for example, are not.

Behold: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/master/wp-includ...

My friend's father recently passed away and we can't get the login details for his wordpress.org blog (he apparently used an email address she wasn't aware of). We'd like to save his writings.

"WordPress" exists as 2 entities, there is the managed platform hosted as wordpress.com and then there is the self-hosted opensource CMS available at wordpress.org

I suggest you choose a framework based on whatever language you know well, or are willing to learn well.

I'm assuming you aren't building internal apps in an enterprise environment that would push you toward Java or .Net, but instead public facing sites/apps as an independent developer.

For Python, the major popular choices are Django[0], a "batteries included" framework, and Flask[1], a more lightweight option.

For Ruby, the equivalents are Rails[2], and Sinatra[3].

There are many other options, mostly created with a specific niche or use-case in mind.

Personally I am most familiar with the broader Python ecosystem, so additional frameworks that come to mind are Pyramid (Lightweight framework that scales up to complex projects as needed), Tornado (async non-blocking), Dash (low-code for ML), Cube (semantic web).

And of course there are many other languages (eg. Java, PHP, JS, etc.) in which you can create web sites and apps, but sticking to the popular options to start with has advantages in terms of ecosystem, documentation and other learning resources, and so on.

I'd be remis if I didn't mention one other option that has a lot of bang-for-the-buck if it fits your use case: Most websites (and a lot of web apps) are content-oriented and just a content management system. In which case, starting from an open source CMS and doing a bit of customization will get you to "done" a lot faster. There are plenty of open source CMSs to choose from (most are written in PHP) but the most popular by far is humble WordPress[4]. Check it out if your site is going to have anything like a simple posts and pages organization, and a drafts and publication workflow (personally I am invested enough in Python that even for that sort of site I default to choosing something like Wagtail or another Django-based CMS[5], or Plone[6], which reinforces what I said at the start: make your choice based on the languages and tools you know well).

[0] https://django.org/

[1] https://flask.org/

[2] https://rubyonrails.org/

[3] http://sinatrarb.org/

[4] https://wordpress.org/

[5] https://djangopackages.org/grids/g/cms/

[6] https://plone.org/

I am a total noob to making a blog through wordpress.org. I am having issues with it having very long load times when i go from page to page. Is it normal or am i missing something?

I am totally new to making wordpress.org website and i am using bluehost. The issue is that i takes FOREVER for me to get into my wordpress dashboard and move around ( 1 - 2 minutes if it doesnt crash). I have 1000/1000 internet connection. Does anyone know why this is happening?

Buy a domain name and host your own version of wordpress.org - its much cheaper and more customisable than wordpress.com

Ahh that sounds like a full cPanel backup. You only need the public_html. In fact, you only actually need the wp-content folder if you want a clean slate. You can download WP from wordpress.org and run the setup and you wont have any of the old site junk littered about.