4 ms·

Agreed, but there isn't a really solid blogging platform anymore that: - Offers a dev "enough" control (some HTML/CSS/JS support but not total control) - Stay

Agreed, but there isn't a really solid blogging platform anymore that: - Offers a dev "enough" control (some HTML/CSS/JS support but not total control) - Stays largely out of the way (maybe something like a "powered by" header/footer only) - Doesn't try to lock free posts behind paywalls - Is independently owned and not a big tech product (so no Blogger) - Is abstracted enough so that someone doesn't need to know domain, DNS, hosting, VPS, or sysadmin stuff in general to start a website The closest things I've seen to this are Neocities and Glitch. The best one used to be Blogger, but again it's big tech so you can't use it without being assimilated into the Google collective consciousness.

scarface_74 2y ago
Micro.blog covers all of your requirement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro.blog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro.blog
lategloriousgnu 2y ago
Bear Blog meets every one of your requirements. https://bearblog.dev https://bearblog.dev You can see examples on the discover page. https://bearblog.dev/discover https://bearblog.dev/discover It has a small collection of simple pre-built themes, while also supporting custom CSS. https://docs.bearblog.dev/styling https://docs.bearblog.dev/styling
johnnyanmac 2y ago
At that point you just whip up a github pages domain and use your favorite frontend framework with some blogging framework taken into account. If Microsoft is still a deterrent, you just register your own domain and pay the dozen bucks per year to keep it spinning. if you really can't be bothered to set any of that up, I suppose you can always find one of the non-mainstream open-source microblogging platforms. I'm sure there are some lovely "reddit alternatives" out there that feel great to blog on but has an audience of a dozen people internally.
jorams 2y ago
There's a ton of those platforms, varying from extremely unknown to fairly well established. I'm pretty sure multiple of them end up as a Show HN every year. The only thing on your list they generally don't do is domain registration, but keeping that separate is generally a good thing. Sibling mentioned bearblog.dev, I'll mention write.as[1]. [1]: https://write.as/ https://write.as/
janalsncm 2y ago
The barrier should not be the platform. If you have something interesting to say, there are many ways in 2025 to deliver text to people’s eyeballs. You can use GitHub pages with Hugo which is what I do. You can build out a series of GitHub gists that link to each other. You can host a static S3 website with raw HTML. You can post redundantly to Twitter/Bluesky/your own subreddit/Medium/Google drive. It doesn’t matter if there’s no single solution to every possible problem. The point is to write something interesting so 1) you understand it better 2) you can reference it later if you forget some details 3) you can show off to potential employers. Whether or not it’s owned by big tech is a non-goal as far as getting a job is concerned.
z3t4 2y ago
Just write your own blog software. It's surprising how much you can do with just a <textarea> save it in a database. Then print out the content on a web site.

scarface_74 2y ago

Micro.blog covers all of your requirement. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro.blog https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro.blog

lategloriousgnu 2y ago

Bear Blog meets every one of your requirements. https://bearblog.dev https://bearblog.dev You can see examples on the discover page. https://bearblog.dev/discover https://bearblog.dev/discover It has a small collection of simple pre-built themes, while also supporting custom CSS. https://docs.bearblog.dev/styling https://docs.bearblog.dev/styling

johnnyanmac 2y ago

At that point you just whip up a github pages domain and use your favorite frontend framework with some blogging framework taken into account. If Microsoft is still a deterrent, you just register your own domain and pay the dozen bucks per year to keep it spinning. if you really can't be bothered to set any of that up, I suppose you can always find one of the non-mainstream open-source microblogging platforms. I'm sure there are some lovely "reddit alternatives" out there that feel great to blog on but has an audience of a dozen people internally.

jorams 2y ago

There's a ton of those platforms, varying from extremely unknown to fairly well established. I'm pretty sure multiple of them end up as a Show HN every year. The only thing on your list they generally don't do is domain registration, but keeping that separate is generally a good thing. Sibling mentioned bearblog.dev, I'll mention write.as[1]. [1]: https://write.as/ https://write.as/

janalsncm 2y ago

The barrier should not be the platform. If you have something interesting to say, there are many ways in 2025 to deliver text to people’s eyeballs. You can use GitHub pages with Hugo which is what I do. You can build out a series of GitHub gists that link to each other. You can host a static S3 website with raw HTML. You can post redundantly to Twitter/Bluesky/your own subreddit/Medium/Google drive. It doesn’t matter if there’s no single solution to every possible problem. The point is to write something interesting so 1) you understand it better 2) you can reference it later if you forget some details 3) you can show off to potential employers. Whether or not it’s owned by big tech is a non-goal as far as getting a job is concerned.

z3t4 2y ago

Just write your own blog software. It's surprising how much you can do with just a <textarea> save it in a database. Then print out the content on a web site.