Ask HN: Blogging platforms for highly technical content?
4 comments
Have you considered using a static site generator like Hugo/Jekyll/Gatsby? You could then host it using Github Pages for free. You automatically get a free SSL cert via Let's Encrypt and can use your own domain. You would only pay for your domain annually. Very fast, secure, and affordable.
Yes I was thinking of this indeed. I like it because of the zero-hackability. Though it will not allow me to accept comments and I want to avoid platforms like Disqus.
However I have zero discoverability that way, like I said in the post. I can write nice articles but nobody will come across them, even people that would have been interested. I'm not vain or anything if I say so myself but if I put in the work it would be nice if someone would actually benefit from it :)
This is the nice thing about platforms like Medium but they're all so commercial... I don't like that part. And I don't want to constantly market my blog everywhere. I just want it in a place where people could pick up on it if they find it interesting, and ideally where I could find such posts from others. A bit like Hacker News but then more for blogs itself.
It absolutely does not need to monetise in any way. I have a job :)
However I have zero discoverability that way, like I said in the post. I can write nice articles but nobody will come across them, even people that would have been interested. I'm not vain or anything if I say so myself but if I put in the work it would be nice if someone would actually benefit from it :)
This is the nice thing about platforms like Medium but they're all so commercial... I don't like that part. And I don't want to constantly market my blog everywhere. I just want it in a place where people could pick up on it if they find it interesting, and ideally where I could find such posts from others. A bit like Hacker News but then more for blogs itself.
It absolutely does not need to monetise in any way. I have a job :)
You get out what you put in when running a blog. You need to market your site unfortunately. That’s where SEO, social sharing, newsletters and all those other annoying things come in. Even on a platform with an existing audience, like Medium, you will still be drowned out in the noise, unless you’re *very* lucky.
Bonus to hosting your own stuff is that you own it and no one can take that from you.
Bonus to hosting your own stuff is that you own it and no one can take that from you.
https://utteranc.es/ might take care of the comments.
So, I've been looking for a platform. I really like Medium as a platform, but I hate their monetisaton by tracking. I don't want to 'sell out' my readers. Also, I don't need it to make money for me. If anything I'd pay to publish it. But it would be nice if I could use it to get my name out there more on the topics I write about. I want to write from a purely technical point of view, I don't want to do any placement even for products from my employer.
However I'd like to get some kind of attention to it. I could of course publish it on a self-hosted wordpress or something but it means there's hardly any point because nobody would ever see it. Ideally I'd like to be on a public platform where likeminded souls could come across it by chance. I don't want to actively promote it here (I know that's not even allowed anyway!) or anywhere, but it would be nice if people that are interested could at least have a chance to come across it.
In other words, I'm looking for the "Hacker News" of blogging sites :)
Any ideas? Of course I've been looking but the mainstream ones are all collecting data. I came across https://habr.com which kinda resonated with me: very technical content, not much marketing placement. But it's very Russian focused. Digging into stuff about the site (like pricing and privacy: https://habrastorage.org/storage/stuff/habr/service_price.pdf ) turns up documents that are in Russian only.
So I was wondering if you'd have any other ideas. I'd appreciate any feedback!