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TL; DR: What is the most hassle-free way to build a personal blog?
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First, I want to explain why I want to save the hassle and save money: My personal blog is ad-free. I just want to write, so it is not worth spending too much time or money (preferably free) on non-writing behaviors, and I do not have the ability to deal with complex, high-maintenance systems.
I am looking for a way to blog that is effortless and have low maintenance on the server side (like static site generator vs WordPress), a way to write the blog that has a better writing environment on my PC. (Maybe a local CMS or something like that)
Few ways I know so far but they are not perfect
The first one: WP2Static plugin for WordPress (or other plugins by WP2Static author Leon Stafford [1]). They work, but they have some minor issues, they do not export sites perfectly. Other solutions [2] recommended by Leon I have tried: HTTrack has not been actively developed for a long time (since 2017) and does not work anymore, Wget can't crawl the site intact, Shifter, Stratti are expensive (But they run smoothly), HardyPress' cheap plan has only 500MB, Sitesauce's hosting provider Vercel was censored here. (I know, right?)
The second approach is called Headless CMS [3]. But after doing some research, it seems that running a fully local Headless CMS requires writing complex API calls (Strapi, etc). Better solutions are either expensive or free but require an account and have some limitations. I would prefer a completely local and free solution (I am so greedy :-|). NetlifyCMS seems great but it seems like it can only be hosted on Netlify?
The third way is Ghost [4]. Ghost's writing experience looks good, but if deployed to the server, it may require continuous maintenance. Ghost's static plugin [5] seems to be not working perfectly. Ghost's Headless CMS also requires writing API calls.[6][7]
Fourth way: popular services like wordpress.com, Medium, Tumblr, etc. are not accessible in my area, so I can only consider self-hosting.
---
[1] https://github.com/leonstafford/
[2] https://wp2static.com/alternatives/
[3] https://jamstack.org/headless-cms/
[4] https://ghost.org
[5] https://github.com/Fried-Chicken/ghost-static-site-generator
[6] https://ghost.org/docs/jamstack/gatsby/
[7] https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/sourcing-from-ghost/
TL; DR: What is the most hassle-free way to build a personal blog?
---
First, I want to explain why I want to save the hassle and save money: My personal blog is ad-free. I just want to write, so it is not worth spending too much time or money (preferably free) on non-writing behaviors, and I do not have the ability to deal with complex, high-maintenance systems.
I am looking for a way to blog that is effortless and have low maintenance on the server side (like static site generator vs WordPress), a way to write the blog that has a better writing environment on my PC. (Maybe a local CMS or something like that)
Few ways I know so far but they are not perfect
The first one: WP2Static plugin for WordPress (or other plugins by WP2Static author Leon Stafford [1]). They work, but they have some minor issues, they do not export sites perfectly. Other solutions [2] recommended by Leon I have tried: HTTrack has not been actively developed for a long time (since 2017) and does not work anymore, Wget can't crawl the site intact, Shifter, Stratti are expensive (But they run smoothly), HardyPress' cheap plan has only 500MB, Sitesauce's hosting provider Vercel was censored here. (I know, right?)
The second approach is called Headless CMS [3]. But after doing some research, it seems that running a fully local Headless CMS requires writing complex API calls (Strapi, etc). Better solutions are either expensive or free but require an account and have some limitations. I would prefer a completely local and free solution (I am so greedy :-|). NetlifyCMS seems great but it seems like it can only be hosted on Netlify?
The third way is Ghost [4]. Ghost's writing experience looks good, but if deployed to the server, it may require continuous maintenance. Ghost's static plugin [5] seems to be not working perfectly. Ghost's Headless CMS also requires writing API calls.[6][7]
Fourth way: popular services like wordpress.com, Medium, Tumblr, etc. are not accessible in my area, so I can only consider self-hosting.
---
[1] https://github.com/leonstafford/
[2] https://wp2static.com/alternatives/
[3] https://jamstack.org/headless-cms/
[4] https://ghost.org
[5] https://github.com/Fried-Chicken/ghost-static-site-generator
[6] https://ghost.org/docs/jamstack/gatsby/
[7] https://www.gatsbyjs.com/docs/sourcing-from-ghost/
I use Hugo and vim to write.
Host in my GKE, but I'm running that for other reasons primarily.
See https://github.com/hofstadter-io/cuetorials.com for an example
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