5 ms·

So we are back to running our own blogs again? What are the alternatives to Medium if you don’t want to self-host? Ghost?

briandear 8y ago
Wordpress.com
aantix 8y ago
Update your .plan
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
rococode 8y ago
Several YC-affiliated people (Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston, etc.) use Posthaven.
- tradertef 8y ago
  Thanks. This seems to be the best platform.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Blogspot.
- SoulMan 8y ago
  I am on blogger. But what I don't like about it is 1. It only uses a narrow column for content. 2. No code highlighting or snippets embedding support
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    There are multiple layouts, all further customizable. If you can edit HTML, you have access to the code. If you can't, there are myriad user-friendly options for making the interface do what you want. I actually help people with that for pay if you want assistance. The code snippets are a real issue. I'm not sure how much code you could even show because I don't show code snippets on any of my blogs. Maybe screenshots would work. It's also possible that writing it in the "compose" interface would work. I usually write in the HTML interface, but I use the app on my phone. When I copy and paste, it shows up differently depending on which interface I'm using. It's possible that blockquoting it in the compose interface and then adding HR tags top and bottom to help set it off would get you satisfactory results. You can also add custom CSS to any layout. This has allowed me to get effects not natively supported by the user-friendly customization options without digging around in the code per se, which I'm not confident enough to do. I know a little HTML and CSS, but not so much that I'm comfortable going directly into the code. I tried it once and couldn't figure out where the thing was that I wanted to edit.
    - mnmlsm 8y ago
      Both are OK, but I like https://hashnode.com/ https://hashnode.com/ better - it's a blogging community for developers and you can use Markdown which is much simpler.
kawsper 8y ago
https://svbtle.com/ https://svbtle.com/
- Kye 8y ago
  $72 a year is a lot of money. [1] The thing that made Medium special was that anyone could post about something that mattered to them and get noticed no matter their background. WordPress, Blogger, and other free things cost energy in place of money because they're top-heavy with features and weak accessibility. That's as much a blocker as a recurring charge. [1] "But it's $70 if you pay the full year!" That's not much of a deal for someone who's already wary about trusting a company with a direct line to cause a cascade of overdraft feeds.
  - PaulHoule 8y ago
    $72 a year is not a lot of money. If you got a $1.00 coffee every other day from McDonald's it would be twice that. The main reason why the web is such a sight for sore eyes in 2019 is that people seem to think $72 a year is a lot for having a voice. People can find 10x that for a new iPhone or spend that much on beer in a month or on a cable subscription but having a blog sure can't be worth much to most people. For one thing, how much do they think their time is worth? That is 10 hours of time spent writing at around minimum wage in the U.S. I don't get it. On the other hand, I don't understand how grandmothers spend $5 on acrylic yarn when they could spend $10 to make a (better) wool scarf that they'll spend 20 hours knitting. (e.g. the wool scarf will protect you in a fire, the acrylic scarf will melt, burn you, and produce toxic fumes.)
    - jpatokal 8y ago
      It's a fair amount of money compared to a hosted Wordpress.com site that costs $0/yr (foo.wordpress.com), $13/yr (custom domain) or $50/yr (custom domain, no ads), and has the safety valve of being able to export and move to any other WP host including self-hosting at any time.
      - 8y ago
tedmiston 8y ago
FWIW you can trivially self-host Ghost these days with an official one-click droplet on DigitalOcean. https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/one-clicks/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/one-clicks/ghost/
- shiftpgdn 8y ago
  There are a million security implications involved with this. I don't recommend it unless you're going to stay on top of keeping your system up to date.
  - tedmiston 8y ago
    The security implications are no different than those for hosting any other web application which most developers are already comfortable doing.
- npunt 8y ago
  Perhaps if you're doing this type of work frequently, but if you're just a regular person who wants a blog it's not trivial nor advisable. Configuring your DO instance can be a pain and you have to manually keep Ghost up to date by SSHing in. Definitely not set and forget.
  - tedmiston 8y ago
    The author's post seemed to target a developer blogger audience as opposed to regular people. With this particular image, there's virtually no DO configuration (just standard size / region settings which have smart defaults IIRC). You do have to SSH in, but the new Ghost 2.0 CLI handles updating Ghost much more smoothly than in the past. I've been happy with it personally.
    - npunt 8y ago
      The DO one-click is super easy, but the SSL config and adding Cloudflare wound up being a huge pain. DO's docs aren't great and that meant I spent hours in config land just trying to get tablestakes blog features of HTTPS and DDoS protection. Ghost 2.0 is definitely better than prior versions but still needs babysitting. As an infrequent blogger, I've found I am updating Ghost more frequently than I'm blogging. Github pages or Gatsby (via something like Netlify) are much better suited to this problem because server config & SSL are handled and they're just serving static pages.
dalanmiller 8y ago
In conjunction with your static site editor of choice, I've found Netlify[0] to be really good. I'm basically just using Webpack atm. https://www.netlify.com/ https://www.netlify.com/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
SamWhited 8y ago
https://write.as/ https://write.as/ appears to be a very nice, minimal blogging platform. It's gorgeous, and easy to read on so as a frequent blog reader I love it.
sergiotapia 8y ago
I've moved to: https://dev.to https://dev.to Solid platform, discoverability baked in, great writing tools. They do need to polish their UX though as I wrote a lengthy article for about an hour and then clicked on "Write a Post" instead of Save to publish. This wiped my editor clean with no way to recover what was lost. Horrible experience there. They should at least autosave for you on every keystroke. No reason not to.
- jamietanna 8y ago
  Have you reported these as issues /feature requests?
- Liriel 8y ago
  Make sure to check out https://hashnode.com https://hashnode.com too :)
  - mnmlsm 8y ago
    I can also recommend Hashnode. It also has a new autosave for post drafts: https://hashnode.com/post/writing-announcing-drafts-feature-for-stories-cjqnk5y6m0045iis2w9g27g3m https://hashnode.com/post/writing-announcing-drafts-feature-...
educationdata 8y ago
Why not WordPress? You can use their host, or self-host.

briandear 8y ago

Wordpress.com

aantix 8y ago

Update your .plan

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

rococode 8y ago

Several YC-affiliated people (Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston, etc.) use Posthaven.

tradertef 8y ago
Thanks. This seems to be the best platform.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

Blogspot.

SoulMan 8y ago
I am on blogger. But what I don't like about it is 1. It only uses a narrow column for content. 2. No code highlighting or snippets embedding support
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  There are multiple layouts, all further customizable. If you can edit HTML, you have access to the code. If you can't, there are myriad user-friendly options for making the interface do what you want. I actually help people with that for pay if you want assistance. The code snippets are a real issue. I'm not sure how much code you could even show because I don't show code snippets on any of my blogs. Maybe screenshots would work. It's also possible that writing it in the "compose" interface would work. I usually write in the HTML interface, but I use the app on my phone. When I copy and paste, it shows up differently depending on which interface I'm using. It's possible that blockquoting it in the compose interface and then adding HR tags top and bottom to help set it off would get you satisfactory results. You can also add custom CSS to any layout. This has allowed me to get effects not natively supported by the user-friendly customization options without digging around in the code per se, which I'm not confident enough to do. I know a little HTML and CSS, but not so much that I'm comfortable going directly into the code. I tried it once and couldn't figure out where the thing was that I wanted to edit.
  - mnmlsm 8y ago
    Both are OK, but I like https://hashnode.com/ https://hashnode.com/ better - it's a blogging community for developers and you can use Markdown which is much simpler.

kawsper 8y ago

https://svbtle.com/ https://svbtle.com/

Kye 8y ago
$72 a year is a lot of money. [1] The thing that made Medium special was that anyone could post about something that mattered to them and get noticed no matter their background. WordPress, Blogger, and other free things cost energy in place of money because they're top-heavy with features and weak accessibility. That's as much a blocker as a recurring charge. [1] "But it's $70 if you pay the full year!" That's not much of a deal for someone who's already wary about trusting a company with a direct line to cause a cascade of overdraft feeds.
- PaulHoule 8y ago
  $72 a year is not a lot of money. If you got a $1.00 coffee every other day from McDonald's it would be twice that. The main reason why the web is such a sight for sore eyes in 2019 is that people seem to think $72 a year is a lot for having a voice. People can find 10x that for a new iPhone or spend that much on beer in a month or on a cable subscription but having a blog sure can't be worth much to most people. For one thing, how much do they think their time is worth? That is 10 hours of time spent writing at around minimum wage in the U.S. I don't get it. On the other hand, I don't understand how grandmothers spend $5 on acrylic yarn when they could spend $10 to make a (better) wool scarf that they'll spend 20 hours knitting. (e.g. the wool scarf will protect you in a fire, the acrylic scarf will melt, burn you, and produce toxic fumes.)
  - jpatokal 8y ago
    It's a fair amount of money compared to a hosted Wordpress.com site that costs $0/yr (foo.wordpress.com), $13/yr (custom domain) or $50/yr (custom domain, no ads), and has the safety valve of being able to export and move to any other WP host including self-hosting at any time.
    - 8y ago

tedmiston 8y ago

FWIW you can trivially self-host Ghost these days with an official one-click droplet on DigitalOcean. https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/one-clicks/ghost/ https://www.digitalocean.com/docs/one-clicks/ghost/

shiftpgdn 8y ago
There are a million security implications involved with this. I don't recommend it unless you're going to stay on top of keeping your system up to date.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  The security implications are no different than those for hosting any other web application which most developers are already comfortable doing.
npunt 8y ago
Perhaps if you're doing this type of work frequently, but if you're just a regular person who wants a blog it's not trivial nor advisable. Configuring your DO instance can be a pain and you have to manually keep Ghost up to date by SSHing in. Definitely not set and forget.
- tedmiston 8y ago
  The author's post seemed to target a developer blogger audience as opposed to regular people. With this particular image, there's virtually no DO configuration (just standard size / region settings which have smart defaults IIRC). You do have to SSH in, but the new Ghost 2.0 CLI handles updating Ghost much more smoothly than in the past. I've been happy with it personally.
  - npunt 8y ago
    The DO one-click is super easy, but the SSL config and adding Cloudflare wound up being a huge pain. DO's docs aren't great and that meant I spent hours in config land just trying to get tablestakes blog features of HTTPS and DDoS protection. Ghost 2.0 is definitely better than prior versions but still needs babysitting. As an infrequent blogger, I've found I am updating Ghost more frequently than I'm blogging. Github pages or Gatsby (via something like Netlify) are much better suited to this problem because server config & SSL are handled and they're just serving static pages.

dalanmiller 8y ago

In conjunction with your static site editor of choice, I've found Netlify[0] to be really good. I'm basically just using Webpack atm. https://www.netlify.com/ https://www.netlify.com/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

SamWhited 8y ago

https://write.as/ https://write.as/ appears to be a very nice, minimal blogging platform. It's gorgeous, and easy to read on so as a frequent blog reader I love it.

sergiotapia 8y ago

I've moved to: https://dev.to https://dev.to Solid platform, discoverability baked in, great writing tools. They do need to polish their UX though as I wrote a lengthy article for about an hour and then clicked on "Write a Post" instead of Save to publish. This wiped my editor clean with no way to recover what was lost. Horrible experience there. They should at least autosave for you on every keystroke. No reason not to.

jamietanna 8y ago
Have you reported these as issues /feature requests?
Liriel 8y ago
Make sure to check out https://hashnode.com https://hashnode.com too :)
- mnmlsm 8y ago
  I can also recommend Hashnode. It also has a new autosave for post drafts: https://hashnode.com/post/writing-announcing-drafts-feature-for-stories-cjqnk5y6m0045iis2w9g27g3m https://hashnode.com/post/writing-announcing-drafts-feature-...

educationdata 8y ago

Why not WordPress? You can use their host, or self-host.