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Ask HN: Simplest CMS for blog type website

12 points by mumugo ↗ HN
Hi, my wife and I are planning a long adventure trip and I wanted to create some some sort of travel blog with Next.js or similar stack that I'm familiar with. The problem is my wife will probably write most of the content and she is not technical at all so I'm looking for a very simple CMS, easy to setup and free where she could write up stories and publish them on a daily basis. Mostly text, images and maybe videos. I've looked at some headless CMS on jamstack.org but they're so many ...

29 comments

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nicbou
Why not pick Wordpress?
mobilio
Because it's boring #sarcasm
mumugo
I never used wordpress so I dont know if there's a high learning curve or not ? I dont think I want to explain my wife how to use it ...
DarrenDev
The learning curve is low. Write and Publish - that's it.

The new Wordpress UI is very Medium-like now. I hated it at first, but that's only because I was so used to adding HTML to my posts, which is hidden in the new UI. It's aimed at non-technical writers, and is actually very intuitive.

Pick a simple theme, add one category, and start writing.

I's suggest using Wordpress.com and paying for it. Maintaining and upgrading your own Wordpress.org blog is a pain. No matter how careful you are it's almost a certainty that some malware will find a way in eventually. For a hassle free life, just pay Wordpress.com to manage it for you.

nicbou
> Maintaining and upgrading your own Wordpress.org blog is a pain.

This is true with most self-hosted CMSes, although WordPress is a popular target for hackers.

I spent years perfecting the server setup for my website, and never got it right. If you want to self-host, static site generators are far more hands-off.

warrenm
>Maintaining and upgrading your own Wordpress.org blog is a pain

Honestly, it's not that hard - cron a task to keep the main install updated

Run as few plugins/themes as possible, and schedule them to autoupdate

codeptualize
If you don't want to use Medium or similar solutions, I would check out Ghost.

Their dashboard and editor is imo one of the best out there, really easy to use.

It's easy to host, works headless, and works well with Next.js and others (https://ghost.org/docs/jamstack/next/).

Usually the downside is that it can be a bit limiting in features , but it's perfect for blogging.

mumugo
Please no markdown based CMS as this is is too technical for her. Also self hosted is excluded, too much of hassle for me to maintain it ...
nicbou
Then WordPress. First the hosted version, then the self-hosted version. This is easy to get started with, and leaves many doors open in the future, if you want to expand, extend, self-host or migrate.
warrenm
Why would you ask for something written in a stack you know if you don't want to host it yourself?
mumugo
There are free hosting options for Jamstack sites so I think the question is what's the benefit of hosting it yourself vs using a free hosting provider e.g. for Next.js using Vercel ?
warrenm
ummm..you asked the question :)

shouldn't you know what it's about? :)

[dead] abdul_muqeet
[dead]
mumugo
Thanks! Yes medium and blogger are promising and it looks like you have enough customization options. For medium, if family wants to read the blog posts, do they have to pay the member suscription fee ?
rcarr
Have a look at Tina CMS: it’s git based so you don’t have to worry about moving your content or having it locked up in a proprietary format. And it has good integration with nextjs so you can see what your changes would look like on the website in real time.

https://tina.io/

keiferski
Just use WordPress. These other options like Jekyll or a headless CMS will be too complicated.
bhu1st
WordPress once setup gets out of way completely. I recommend WordPress too.
nowandlater
If you really want to go headless, and I know I'm going to catch flak for this, but consider Drupal 10. Install it using all of the defaults, create a content type for your blog with whatever fields (the built in fields are all enough). Enable the included RESTful web services module. Add a Drupal view with its default display as REST export and you now have data to consume by whatever tooling you want to use. Drupal 10's default admin theme and WYSIWYG editor are straight forward / pleasing to use.

Like others have suggested, use WordPress if your main goal is simplicity and ease of use.

Agunderman10
Strapi is a solid headless CMS and is built for Next.js
mumugo
Google showed me an ad for https://doc2.site, does anyone have experience with that ? Seems new ?

Anyway she tried medium and I think she likes it ...

warrenm
Are you already on Facebook?

I know lots of people who make a private group to post travel photos etc in