I'm a UX/UI designer looking to launch a website for a community group I'm involved with. The idea is to self-host it, and we may consider accepting donations in the future. Primarily, we want to showcase text and images in a straightforward way, with the ability to expand and develop the site further over time. I remember there were some lightweight, open-source website frameworks mentioned on Cohost recently, but I didn't keep track of them. I'd really appreciate any recommendations for simple setups that would suit our needs. Thanks in advance!
5 Answers
You might want to check out these strategies for web design on [Tom Hummel's blog](https://tomhummel.com/posts/four-web-apps/) for some contemporary insights!
For a simple display setup, you could use React with Vite for client-side rendering and GitHub Pages to host it. I did something similar, and it works completely free! You can have multiple pages and even use it for blogs or portfolios, just remember it won't support data processing like logins.
Have you thought about using WordPress? It's quite versatile for community sites!
If you have people with varying technical skills in your group, I suggest looking into Automad. It's a flat-file system that's super lightweight and includes a visual builder, making it easy for anyone to use.
For a simple and efficient setup, I recommend checking out Astro. It's a fast and modern static site generator that's perfect for lightweight websites. You can host it for free on GitHub Pages, which works great for community-driven projects like yours. Plus, Astro is really flexible, so you can add more features as your site grows. There’s even a Discord community where you can get support from experienced users if you need help getting started!
+1 for Astro, it's really good for single-page applications.