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Ask HN: Blogging platforms for highly technical content?

5 points by GekkePrutser ↗ HN
I'm looking to start a blog, because I have a lot of stuff I'd like to write up both from a work point of view and privately. It'll be very technical content mostly.

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!

4 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 27.3 ms ] thread
foodscraps
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.
GekkePrutser
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 :)

kevq
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.