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I found s3 + cloudflare to be a better combo. Cloudflare offers free ssl certs and has overall been a great experience. I also use AWS SES for my domain mail. I

I found s3 + cloudflare to be a better combo. Cloudflare offers free ssl certs and has overall been a great experience. I also use AWS SES for my domain mail. It gets delivered to S3, then a local python script grabs it and dumps it in a mailbox file for dovecot to serve via imap. I pay $0.05/month for my hosting of my site and email. https://markw.dev https://markw.dev

divbzero 7y ago
Or GitHub Pages + CloudFlare. And as another comment mentions, GitHub Pages now offers HTTPS certificates [1] for custom domains, so GitHub Pages alone is sufficient for most static websites. [1]: https://github.blog/2018-05-01-github-pages-custom-domains-https/ https://github.blog/2018-05-01-github-pages-custom-domains-h...
- m82labs 7y ago
  I started there but didn’t like having my drafts and unfinished ideas visible in the repo. I now maintain my site in a private repo and publish to S3. Not sure if that’s possible now in Github or not.
  - jorge-d 7y ago
    You can have a private repo hosting github pages, I'm using it for my personal website
    - StavrosK 7y ago
      Are you paying for it? It sounds like a great solution if it's available on the free tier.
      - chipsa 7y ago
        GitHub provided private repos to everyone after Microsoft bought them. And I don't know why it'd require the repo to be public to do the pages...
        travisjungroth 7y ago
        Pages from a private repo is a paid feature.
  - divbzero 7y ago
    That’s a fair point. GitHub Pages from private repos are enabled only if you have a Pro or Team subscription. [1] [1]: https://github.com/pricing#feature-comparison https://github.com/pricing#feature-comparison
    - BeeOnRope 7y ago
      Actually I'm not sure if it makes sense. If you had gh pages from a private repo, they would be public (in the sense that they are published on the open web) - so that won't solve the OP's problem. IMO the simplest solution for the OP is to have a private repository where he does any draft work, and then pushes the master branch (or whatever) to the public repo in order to "publish". This option is available with or without a paid account, and I don't see any significantly better option available to paid accounts. The only thing you could do there is publish your pages from a private repo, and maintain your drafts in branches in the same repo. That is virtually identical to the original suggestion except that "master branch in public repo" is replaced by "master branch in private (same) repo" which probably makes little practical difference in the workflow.
  - cortesoft 7y ago
    You could always keep the main repo private, and just pushed the published versions to the public repo
  - bachmeier 7y ago
    Well, the html files of your website are of course public information once you publish them, and you can copy the html files to a public repo as part of the build process. When I tried Hugo a couple years ago, I had it set up to do just that (output to a different repo). There was no difference on my end. No matter how you build your site, you can always add the copying at the end of your Makefile or whatever method you use.
  - lucasverra 7y ago
    private repo + netlify when ready then
divbzero 7y ago
I find your email setup intriguing. Any chance you could share those scripts in a GitHub repo or gist?
- m82labs 7y ago
  I plan to write a post about it. I’ll put it up here when I’m done.
- mxie-ca 7y ago
  I have this set up couple years ago via this lambda function: https://github.com/arithmetric/aws-lambda-ses-forwarder https://github.com/arithmetric/aws-lambda-ses-forwarder It may look outdated, but it still functions well for me
  - m82labs 7y ago
    The big difference is my setup doesn’t require another email service. Just 10 lines in a config to spin up an imap server. I was trying avoid the big mail providers when I set this up.
scarface74 7y ago
AWS also offers free SSL certs via the Amazon Certificate Manager. The certs only work with CloudFront, Load balancers and API Gateway though. One advantage is that they are auto renewing and you don’t have to manage them.
- juddlyon 7y ago
  The free SSL certificates via ACM are only available in the US East (Northern Virginia) Region. That has tripped me up before.
  - phinnaeus 7y ago
    That's not quite right. You must provision your CloudFront certificate in us-east-1 because that's where CloudFront is. You can provision ACM certs in any region.
  - kryptk 7y ago
    I have ACM certs issued and working in ap-northeast-1 and us-west-2, attached to an ALB.
  - stonewhite 7y ago
    That is the case for Cloudfront certificates globally. For Loadbalancer or other uses, you should just provision your certs in your own region.
dontdoitpls 7y ago
AWS ses has convinced me Amazon and Google have too much power. 1% "spam" = frozen account Could be bounces, but mostly just users who literally signed up clearly for my email list with 0 deception marking spam. It's actually cut my content production down because I'm afraid to email. From 50 articles per year to 12 to 4 to 2.
- scrollaway 7y ago
  Knowing AWS SES rules and seeing the lack of context from your post, I'm going to guess that either you're embellishing the story, or your content quality is low enough that users see it as spam. 50 a year that is one a week; I need to be super motivated to stay subscribed to a 1-a-week email from a single content provider. Bounces also have their own system and should be handled by your email system as well.
  - dontdoitpls 7y ago
    Not embellishing. And even at 4 a year I have this issue. If 70 of the 7000 emails I send bounce or get marked as Spam, I get frozen until I ask for forgiveness.

divbzero 7y ago

Or GitHub Pages + CloudFlare. And as another comment mentions, GitHub Pages now offers HTTPS certificates [1] for custom domains, so GitHub Pages alone is sufficient for most static websites. [1]: https://github.blog/2018-05-01-github-pages-custom-domains-https/ https://github.blog/2018-05-01-github-pages-custom-domains-h...

m82labs 7y ago
I started there but didn’t like having my drafts and unfinished ideas visible in the repo. I now maintain my site in a private repo and publish to S3. Not sure if that’s possible now in Github or not.
- jorge-d 7y ago
  You can have a private repo hosting github pages, I'm using it for my personal website
  - StavrosK 7y ago
    Are you paying for it? It sounds like a great solution if it's available on the free tier.
    - chipsa 7y ago
      GitHub provided private repos to everyone after Microsoft bought them. And I don't know why it'd require the repo to be public to do the pages...
      - travisjungroth 7y ago
        Pages from a private repo is a paid feature.
- divbzero 7y ago
  That’s a fair point. GitHub Pages from private repos are enabled only if you have a Pro or Team subscription. [1] [1]: https://github.com/pricing#feature-comparison https://github.com/pricing#feature-comparison
  - BeeOnRope 7y ago
    Actually I'm not sure if it makes sense. If you had gh pages from a private repo, they would be public (in the sense that they are published on the open web) - so that won't solve the OP's problem. IMO the simplest solution for the OP is to have a private repository where he does any draft work, and then pushes the master branch (or whatever) to the public repo in order to "publish". This option is available with or without a paid account, and I don't see any significantly better option available to paid accounts. The only thing you could do there is publish your pages from a private repo, and maintain your drafts in branches in the same repo. That is virtually identical to the original suggestion except that "master branch in public repo" is replaced by "master branch in private (same) repo" which probably makes little practical difference in the workflow.
- cortesoft 7y ago
  You could always keep the main repo private, and just pushed the published versions to the public repo
- bachmeier 7y ago
  Well, the html files of your website are of course public information once you publish them, and you can copy the html files to a public repo as part of the build process. When I tried Hugo a couple years ago, I had it set up to do just that (output to a different repo). There was no difference on my end. No matter how you build your site, you can always add the copying at the end of your Makefile or whatever method you use.
- lucasverra 7y ago
  private repo + netlify when ready then

divbzero 7y ago

I find your email setup intriguing. Any chance you could share those scripts in a GitHub repo or gist?

m82labs 7y ago
I plan to write a post about it. I’ll put it up here when I’m done.
mxie-ca 7y ago
I have this set up couple years ago via this lambda function: https://github.com/arithmetric/aws-lambda-ses-forwarder https://github.com/arithmetric/aws-lambda-ses-forwarder It may look outdated, but it still functions well for me
- m82labs 7y ago
  The big difference is my setup doesn’t require another email service. Just 10 lines in a config to spin up an imap server. I was trying avoid the big mail providers when I set this up.

scarface74 7y ago

AWS also offers free SSL certs via the Amazon Certificate Manager. The certs only work with CloudFront, Load balancers and API Gateway though. One advantage is that they are auto renewing and you don’t have to manage them.

juddlyon 7y ago
The free SSL certificates via ACM are only available in the US East (Northern Virginia) Region. That has tripped me up before.
- phinnaeus 7y ago
  That's not quite right. You must provision your CloudFront certificate in us-east-1 because that's where CloudFront is. You can provision ACM certs in any region.
- kryptk 7y ago
  I have ACM certs issued and working in ap-northeast-1 and us-west-2, attached to an ALB.
- stonewhite 7y ago
  That is the case for Cloudfront certificates globally. For Loadbalancer or other uses, you should just provision your certs in your own region.

dontdoitpls 7y ago

AWS ses has convinced me Amazon and Google have too much power. 1% "spam" = frozen account Could be bounces, but mostly just users who literally signed up clearly for my email list with 0 deception marking spam. It's actually cut my content production down because I'm afraid to email. From 50 articles per year to 12 to 4 to 2.

scrollaway 7y ago
Knowing AWS SES rules and seeing the lack of context from your post, I'm going to guess that either you're embellishing the story, or your content quality is low enough that users see it as spam. 50 a year that is one a week; I need to be super motivated to stay subscribed to a 1-a-week email from a single content provider. Bounces also have their own system and should be handled by your email system as well.
- dontdoitpls 7y ago
  Not embellishing. And even at 4 a year I have this issue. If 70 of the 7000 emails I send bounce or get marked as Spam, I get frozen until I ask for forgiveness.