
Ask HN: Which blogging platform do you use? - rajeshmr
Dear HN Community,<p>I am curious to know which blogging platform you use ? Is it paid or free ? Do you self-host ? What is the running costs in case you self-host and what sort of limitations are there to using a platform vs self-hosting ?<p>Thanks for your inputs!<p>Cheers!
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tomaspollak
Self hosted here.

I migrated from Wordpress to Middleman for my blog [0], but wanted to have a
web UI for writing and editing blog posts so I wrote my own [1]. Here's a
screenshot [2].

I also didn't want to lose all the comment history so I wrote another gem [3]
for Disqus-like comments, which are loaded via AJAX given that the website is
completely static.

I haven't gotten around documenting the gems but hope to do sometime this
month!

[0] [http://bootlog.org](http://bootlog.org) [1]
[https://rubygems.org/gems/artifact](https://rubygems.org/gems/artifact) [2]
[https://twitter.com/tomaspollak/status/753728789679529985](https://twitter.com/tomaspollak/status/753728789679529985)
[3] [https://rubygems.org/gems/cachai](https://rubygems.org/gems/cachai)

~~~
swah
Maybe because I'm so used to reading in english and portuguese, when I see
phrases in languages that I'm not as familiar, I find them beautiful (like a
melody, say).

Like this one from your blog: "Y ahí empezaba la magia y los sonidos galáticos
del módem."

~~~
tomaspollak
Hehe, that's a good one. In english it would go like this: "And that's when
the magic would start with the modem's galatic sounds."

------
azdle
For my site [0], I use a custom static site generator that I wrote myself in
rust. [1] (Because you know what the world really needed more than anything
else? Yeah, yet another static site generator.) It's super basic right now,
but it does the job.

Since it's a fully static site, I have Nginx serving it directly on a $5/mo DO
server, along with a bunch of other crap. Static sites are great because they
need almost nothing from a server for hosting.

Also, the site style is heavily inspired by [2].

[0] [https://psbarrett.com/](https://psbarrett.com/) [1]
[https://github.com/azdle/virgil](https://github.com/azdle/virgil) [2]
[http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/)

~~~
rajeshmr
I considered DO $5/month and then also considered posthaven which costs the
same minus the hassles of maintaining and monitoring your own server.. just
trying to explore and discover how the community maintains their blogs :-)

~~~
azdle
For me it came down to the fact that having a real VPS lets me host all my
other projects on there too for the same price, and I'm a cheap bastard. I've
got 19 different domains (including subdomains) hosting different things on
that one VPS. None of them have an significant traffic to speak of and none of
them make money, so having them all on the same server is the only way that I
could reasonably afford to host them all.

~~~
rajeshmr
Fair enough:) Hey we all would like to experiment on low budgets and sure $5
VPS can do wonders for all the experiments and projects.

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emmetogrady
I use Jekyll ([https://jekyllrb.com/](https://jekyllrb.com/)) which generates
static html pages from templates and your blog posts written in markdown. The
advantage of this is that I can put my entire blog in git. Also there is no
database needed, which makes hosting much easier.

I generate the static html and then put them inside a docker container to
deploy. The host is a bare metal server (not free but cheap) with docker
installed.

Both of these blogs use Jekyll + Docker as described above:

\- [http://blog.nimbleci.com/](http://blog.nimbleci.com/)

\- [http://blog.emmetogrady.com/](http://blog.emmetogrady.com/)

~~~
atmosx
I use middleman[1]. There is a blog plugin which is very handy.

I used to use github for hosting but I wanted to have SSL so I moved the blog
to my UPS.

1: [https://middlemanapp.com/](https://middlemanapp.com/)

~~~
rajeshmr
Thanks!

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tedmiston
Ghost, self-hosted, the software is free and I pay $5/month for the small DO
box.

The platforms (Wordpress.com, Ghost(Pro), Blogger, etc) will probably handle
massive spikes better. With something like CloudFlare, I think you can
mitigate a lot of that though.

I've also been happy with Tumblr in the past — there's no self-hosted version
available, but hosted is free. I like Ghost's writing tools better, but
Tumblr's media tools are far more full featured and battle tested from years
of tons of users.

~~~
rajeshmr
Currently, Tumblr seems like a good option. But it's limited by its approach
to blogging. It separates out text, images, videos, quotes and links. I find
that approach quite limiting as when we write we tend to mix and match all
those formats.

Also, I found it limiting to publishing code in Tumblr.

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detaro
Slightly unrelated, you IMHO should always use a solution where you can use
your own domain name, so you can rescue your content to your own server or
another provider and keep your links alive (in case a service is shutting
down, your preferences change, ...)

I personally run a DIY-thing, but that's not because I necessarily think that
is a good idea ;) If I weren't using that I'd either use a static site
generator of some kind or pay for Wordpress.com.

~~~
rajeshmr
Thanks for the suggestion! Now i know why i should use my own domain name.:)

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simplehuman
I use wordpress, I actually have 4 of them on the same server. Yes, I
selfhost.

edit: cost me ~20 USD a month for the managed server.

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morgl
I use one that I wrote from scratch with Flask. I love the simplicity of both
its code & UI. Recently added an admin panel so I can even edit posts while
commuting. It's hosted on a 5$/month Vultr VPS. Had lot of fun trying to make
it "secure".

In my case the big inconvenience is that I spend more time
developing/improving it than actually writing articles.

~~~
rajeshmr
Sure, it would be interesting to write from scratch :) I contemplated writing
a bare minimum blog from scratch.. now i should just try developing it.

I was only wary about using existing tools like ghost, WP etc since it
involves setup, updates and configurations and the learning is pretty minimal
- didn't think the ROI was high.

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Artlav
If "self-hosting" means "web hosting" these days, then my blog/portfolio site
[1] is on a regular web hosting ($45/year, got a few other sites there as
well), and runs on the code i wrote myself (PHP, no DB).

It took a few years (about a decade, really) to get the design right -
people's perception is a weird thing, what looks nice to me is an abomination
to most, and i usually got about one piece of feedback per year.

That's probably the biggest argument i can give against going DIY with web
design.

I've had a few game servers self-hosted (in the "PC-under-the-table" sense),
and i would really advice to get a real hosting for such things - every time
the internet is acting up or you try something that needs parts from the
server box, someone would ping you on Skype about why the server is down. :/)

[1] [http://orbides.org](http://orbides.org)

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jyotiska
I use my own static site generator "minni" \-
[https://github.com/jyotiska/minni](https://github.com/jyotiska/minni). The UI
used to be really basic, so I tweaked it a little in last couple of days. Here
is the link to the blog -
[https://jyotiska.github.io/blog/](https://jyotiska.github.io/blog/)

~~~
rajeshmr
Hey looks interesting. I love the minimalism.

How about the page load times ?

~~~
jyotiska
Well, each blog post is under 30 kb without images. So page load is very fast.
Speed is one of the main reason why I use my own static site generator. Since
it is hosted on Github Pages, it depends on how fast Github can deliver the
page :)

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kevindeasis
[https://medium.com/free-stuff](https://medium.com/free-stuff)

I'm using Medium, it has limited features, but it's the best out there if
you're just looking for something simple. Quality of posts in Medium as a
community is better than MOST blogging platforms out there.

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atsaloli
I use WordPress on a shared server at A2 Hosting. It's about ten bucks a month
and it does everything I need. I recently installed wp-cli so I can make and
edit posts from the command line so I can write in pure markdown without
getting into knock down fights with the built in editor about formatting.

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thenomad
Hosted Wordpress (with WP-Engine).

The ecosystem (primarily the number of really nice themes) and the fact I've
been using it for years just means it's the simplest option.

I'd probably never self-host it again for anything important, though. Too much
configuration / update / tweaking / security / etc / etc time.

~~~
rajeshmr
Precisely! I was unsure if it was worth ur time to maintain all the config,
updates etc. I felt the time could be wisely invested into learning or your
other priorities in life.

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siquick
[https://medium.com/sound-shelter/](https://medium.com/sound-shelter/)

\+ Instant access to Medium userbase.

\+ Solid SEO as the site is spidered so much quicker than any blog I've ever
had.

\+ Nice layout and easy to read.

\- I don't own the content.

\- If Medium closes, so does my blog.

~~~
rajeshmr
Isn't that the point of owning your blog ? Since you dont want to give up the
ownership of your content ?

~~~
siquick
There is actually an option to Export all your posts

[https://medium.com/me/export](https://medium.com/me/export)

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jklein11
I currently use Github Pages and Jekyll. I did this because it was free and
dead simple. At some point I'm thinking about moving it over to Amazon S3
because its cheap, highly scalable, and a good excuse to try out Amazon S3.

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drakonka
I have recently switched to Hugo static site generator (from Octopress),
deploy via GitLab CI, and host on S3.

~~~
rajeshmr
Considered octopress too.. seems like a good option.

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rajeshmr
EDIT : Please share links to your blogs too.. it would be great to know your
work!

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taprun
I wrote my own from scratch.

~~~
rajeshmr
Wow, I would be interested to have a discussion with you regarding ur setup.

