I'm looking to dive back into blogging after a long break of nearly 20 years. I want to keep it simple and user-friendly, steering clear of things like comments and trackbacks. I prefer not to mess with server management at all. An ideal setup would let me publish by uploading to a git repository with webhooks for automatic deployments. I definitely want to avoid platforms like Medium or Substack and have no interest in going back to WordPress. Additionally, I want to steer clear of modern front-end libraries such as React or Vue, but I'm open to platforms that allow templating while keeping things low-maintenance.
8 Answers
I've always had great experiences with Hugo. It remains one of the best options for building blogs, especially if you're familiar with it.
You might want to check out Astro, Jekyll, 11ty, or Hugo. They all support workflows that let you build and deploy whenever you push or merge to your main branch. It's a solid way to manage your content without much hassle!
Why not just push markdown files to your GitHub repo? It can't get simpler than that! Although I haven't tried it myself, it seems like a great option.
That's true, but pushing markdown alone might not provide friendly URLs or RSS feeds, which could limit user-friendliness.
Astro and Eleventy are awesome choices too! They support markdown well and have plenty of good templates. Just set it up with Netlify or Cloudflare to enable automatic deployments when you push to the main branch. You can write directly in GitHub or use your favorite markdown editor!
I recommend searching for a "static site generator" in the language you're most comfortable with. It’ll give you lots of great options to choose from!
Bearblog.dev is super minimalist and does everything for you. It’s fast, no ads or trackers, and you can sign up in seconds! Plus, it supports custom domains and RSS feeds, which makes it an easy choice for straightforward blogging.
I'm trying out VitePress lately. It’s primarily Vue, but you won’t need to deal with Vue code unless you're customizing components. You can just write in markdown and set it up to automatically publish when you push to GitHub! So far, I'm really liking it.
Have you considered GitHub Pages? It's got the simplicity you might be looking for.
If you integrate the standard.site lexicon, you can even layer in cross-publishing on AtProto, which is pretty neat!