What’s the best way to get started on building a simple website?

WordPress could also be a viable solution for your project. It's quite user-friendly and can manage input/output for you, plus there are numerous plugins available for expanding functionalities later.

Starting off, I'd recommend diving into a simple HTML, CSS, and JavaScript setup for your website. You can use a code editor like VS Code (it’s free!) to build out your site. For styling, I'd suggest using a CSS framework like Bootstrap or Tailwind – it makes your site look nice without heavy lifting. A good approach is to implement a form in HTML that can handle user submissions, which you can then connect to some JavaScript to process that data. For hosting, AWS has an S3 bucket solution that's easy to use, or you could explore Azure's App Services. They offer free tiers to help you get started without stress. And when you're ready to take it up a notch with user accounts, frameworks like Svelte or even Blazor for C# could be a good fit. Grab some tutorials to get your feet wet and expand from there!

If you want to take a more modern approach, have you considered using Next.js with TypeScript? It's a great option to handle both frontend and backend seamlessly. You can also use Supabase for user authentication and database management. Hosting your MVP on Vercel or Netlify allows for quick scaling later on. With your IT background, you'll pick up these newer tools in no time!

I personally find Heroku super straightforward for hosting projects like this. You just push your code, and it manages everything like scaling and security for you. I used it for my own project – I started with a TypeScript Node starter template and built it out. The backend and frontend were in JavaScript, which made switching between them easier. Plus, you can pair it with MongoDB for database needs through services like Atlas. It's a solid choice if you're looking for simplicity!