There are many approaches to this, but it costs me roughly $25 a year to renew my .com domain and pay for my $1 a month vps. Im using an open source cms and pay nothing for fonts because I don't monetize my blog (thus can use any of the non-commercial liscensed fonts).
I could use a more robust platform or a vps host which claims better uptime, or even find a cheaper tld for my domaim, but this works fine for me.
I pay $0 each for my websites beyond the domain names. Cloudflare CDN + GitHub pages. For my newer sites I don't even bother with a static site generator, LLMs make writing straight HTML/CSS/a little vanilla javascript super easy. If you use webp/jpegxl for images your bandwidth costs are so low and cacheable you easily fit into free tiers.
I feel like this is the author's cost when it comes to personal blogging, especially when mentioning paid typefaces.
The only thing I'd say anyone needs for blogging specifically is a domain name, but that's more to do with the nature of blogging where the author "owns" the space where the writing lives. When it comes to that there are enough free services that can provide you with the space and subdomain.
There's a weird phenomenon I've been noticing in the last two years-ish where a lot of people have become obsessed with blogging and sharing their thoughts online in their own personal digital space. I've even seen old personal blogs gain a surge of activity in the last year whereas in the years prior there would be at most a post per year.
Also regarding the point about text editors I've never understood why people use dedicated markdown editors? I thought the whole point of Markdown was minimal formatting that's hassle-free to write in whichever text box you happen to find yourself in making dedicated software kinda redundant, no? As opposed to something like Org where you rely on org-mode in Emacs otherwise GOOD LUCK when editing it "by hand".
I apologize if this comes off as a rant, I've actually enjoyed this particular post!
- Get domain ($20/year)
- Get a cheap compute instance (free or $5/month)
- Tell claude to install nginx and otherwise setup instance
- Tell claude to set DNS(s) to this instance, and modify nginx.conf
- Tell claude to setup a Hugo static site local on your computer
- Add a post in markdown, or tell claude to make one for you
- Tell claude to setup Hugo to make a template that's unique to you
- Tell claude to make shell script to build Hugo and rsync to remote host
If you stick to static pages, you can host many domains with Hacker News traffic and the compute instance won't break a sweat. https://www.orner.com/projects/
I did something similar. I had Claude fork an anonymous image board, add features to it, fix bugs in it, optimize it, add the ability to import (convert) HTML to the boards markup language and then I moved most of my blog posts to it.
It's not exactly a traditional blog, nor is it a traditional image board. Replies may not get through real time but if they are thought out and do not break US laws then it is likely they will end up on the site which I think is still a little better than some blogs. It's not for everyone. Well, its probably not for anyone other than me. My emphasis to Claude and Grok was to ensure it does not require JavaScript and makes a best effort to be WCAG compliant and respect peoples motion sensitivity preferences even if I never hire someone to certify it. I don't even know if HN has anyone that needs a WCAG compliant site.
Note that it's possible to use Git to publish to any server, it doesn't have to be Github. I use it on my blog that's just a shared account on asmallorange.
If your static site generator (I use Nikola) has a config for publishing to Github it will probably work with any remote origin.
So, this post went up several points, had several people respond, then sunk back down to one point. People downvoted it, because it explained how to host something yourself? I don’t understand downvotes.
I'm still thoroughly happy with going for a static site for 10ish years - first raw HTML, then Jekyll, now Hugo
But in the last few years I've been paying for bandwidth on my site - largely due to consistent traffic usage, as well as some big spikes, and lots of scraping! - so I'm currently hitting ~$30/mo on AWS due to needing AWS WAF on top of Cloudfront + S3
(I'd ended up needing to pay much more /mo for Netlify, bandwidth wise, so migrated to AWS)
If you write a blog with a static site generator (which I highly suggest! Can't hack HTML!), I heartily recommend https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net for hosting. It really is nearly free, price wise, and their policies are like someone scanned my brain for "what do you most wish your vendor would do in all circumstances?".
Highly second the recommendation for nearlyfreespeech.net. In fact, even if your page is not statically generated, it's still an extremely competitive, pay-for-what-you-use service. Love it!
Blog from your own domain and you can establish your own personal aesthetic. Blog at Substack and some people will inevitably associate you, accurately or not, with the site's established culture. Substack is notorious for its hustlers and grifters.
Substack is trying to become a new social media platform in the style of Twitter with its Notes feature, and with a mobile app with an awful feed (it's the only way to Pangram-check posts, which is unfortunately often needed). I'm using it now for my writing, reluctantly, because there are some interesting people there and it's possible to leave (it is still an email newsletter tool at heart and you have the addresses). But there's also a lot of verbose nonsense, echo chambers, and outright automated grift out there.
The paid side of it is just in poor taste. Almost inevitably, it leads you down the path to "read the bombshell beyond the paywall, now just $49.99 a year!" sensationalism.
P.S. The feed is awful in the sense of awfully effective at attention-grabbing. I managed to never install any of the standard infinite-scroll feeds (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.), but Substack sneaked up on me and man, this stuff is not good for your psyche!
I don’t see the point in paying for my own domain. I hate it that sources of great information disappear when the owner passes away. Chances are that GitHub pages will exist longer than I do. But if not, I can still move my business somewhere else.
Publish your writing to a domain you control, then syndicate it to several other places. If you're less than, say, 40, there's a very good chance that you will outlive Github Pages, in the same way that many of us outlived Geocities and Angelfire.
> In today’s age of data collection and privacy concerns, I prefer to pay for my blogging platform or hosting.
Not sure if that is necessary. Tons of great static blog generators these days, like Jekyll and stuff. I personally use my own vibe-coded markdown-based one [1]
You're right on the generation side, but that doesn't really address the hosting cost. If you pay for your own domain you can probably get the rest for free or < $1/month though.
If you use Fastmail for mail you may also be able to use them for a static blog. The file hosting that is included with a Fastmail account supports serving folders on the web.
Basically you can pick a folder in your file sharing area, map it to your domain or a subdomain of your domain, add an A record at your DNS pointing that to an IP Fastmail provides, and select whether you want it published as a website, a photo gallery, or a redirect to somewhere else.
If you are using your own domain for the website and accept the default of HTTPS Fastmail will deal with getting and deploying a certificate (from Let's Encrypt, I believe).
(BTW, you don't have to have your own domain for this. If you aren't use a custom domain with Fastmail apparently you can still publish static websites from your file hosting space. It will just be on one of the subdomains).
Fastmail accounts also include DNS hosting. If you use them for your DNS then all of this can be managed from the settings in the Fastmail client, which is convenient.
> When people buy a domain for their blog, it’s a clear sign they intend to stick around.
If you go through comments on some popular post from the golden age of blogging (~2011?), where people's names would link to their sites, the free wordpress.com or whatever blogspot blogs are up much more often than the custom domain ones.
Funnily enough, often the last post on the free blog will be the announcement of switching to a domain, now inactive.
You are completely right but also I can quit the desire to review and revise. Ultimately it is a good thing and an exercise in persistence but sometimes it's a grind.
Been blogging almost monthly since the late aughts, I am just being a complainer.
Surprised I'm not seeing more around self-hosting a blog. I host a Statamic [1] based blog deployed on a TinyMiniMicro PC, the only external service I interact with outside my stack is CloudFlare Tunnel for exposure to the public internet. Am I in complete control of my data? Not really because I am using a closed-source tunnelling service, but at least I am not at the mercy of a cloud services company for hosting my data in the first place.
51 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 24.2 ms ] threadI could use a more robust platform or a vps host which claims better uptime, or even find a cheaper tld for my domaim, but this works fine for me.
This is your biggest cost. You can cut that down to $11.17 if you switch to Cloudflare.
The rest is optional, with good free choices up and down the stack - we're blessed with almost infinite options, paid and free.
It's not easy to have your own little corner online - but it's not hard either. And it doesn't have to cost.
For discovery I really love Bubbles (https://bubbles.town) & they even have RSS feeds.
The only thing I'd say anyone needs for blogging specifically is a domain name, but that's more to do with the nature of blogging where the author "owns" the space where the writing lives. When it comes to that there are enough free services that can provide you with the space and subdomain.
There's a weird phenomenon I've been noticing in the last two years-ish where a lot of people have become obsessed with blogging and sharing their thoughts online in their own personal digital space. I've even seen old personal blogs gain a surge of activity in the last year whereas in the years prior there would be at most a post per year.
Also regarding the point about text editors I've never understood why people use dedicated markdown editors? I thought the whole point of Markdown was minimal formatting that's hassle-free to write in whichever text box you happen to find yourself in making dedicated software kinda redundant, no? As opposed to something like Org where you rely on org-mode in Emacs otherwise GOOD LUCK when editing it "by hand".
I apologize if this comes off as a rant, I've actually enjoyed this particular post!
It's not exactly a traditional blog, nor is it a traditional image board. Replies may not get through real time but if they are thought out and do not break US laws then it is likely they will end up on the site which I think is still a little better than some blogs. It's not for everyone. Well, its probably not for anyone other than me. My emphasis to Claude and Grok was to ensure it does not require JavaScript and makes a best effort to be WCAG compliant and respect peoples motion sensitivity preferences even if I never hire someone to certify it. I don't even know if HN has anyone that needs a WCAG compliant site.
And simply use Cloudflare generous free tier to host your website and protect it from ddos.
If your static site generator (I use Nikola) has a config for publishing to Github it will probably work with any remote origin.
But in the last few years I've been paying for bandwidth on my site - largely due to consistent traffic usage, as well as some big spikes, and lots of scraping! - so I'm currently hitting ~$30/mo on AWS due to needing AWS WAF on top of Cloudfront + S3
(I'd ended up needing to pay much more /mo for Netlify, bandwidth wise, so migrated to AWS)
I handover the markdown to my coding agent when I am done. And everything is ready.
- $3 per year .click custom domain through AWS . delete the route53 ns service ($6/year, optional)
- cloudflare hosting free tier > 10m requests / mo
- hugo, pelican , jekyll, gatspy etc static-site generator
You can blog and hit > 10k DAU for $3 / year.
The paid side of it is just in poor taste. Almost inevitably, it leads you down the path to "read the bombshell beyond the paywall, now just $49.99 a year!" sensationalism.
* markdown files
* push to GitHub
* their Jekyll actions take care of the rest
I don’t see the point in paying for my own domain. I hate it that sources of great information disappear when the owner passes away. Chances are that GitHub pages will exist longer than I do. But if not, I can still move my business somewhere else.
Not sure if that is necessary. Tons of great static blog generators these days, like Jekyll and stuff. I personally use my own vibe-coded markdown-based one [1]
[1] https://github.com/dllu/dllup-rs
Basically you can pick a folder in your file sharing area, map it to your domain or a subdomain of your domain, add an A record at your DNS pointing that to an IP Fastmail provides, and select whether you want it published as a website, a photo gallery, or a redirect to somewhere else.
If you are using your own domain for the website and accept the default of HTTPS Fastmail will deal with getting and deploying a certificate (from Let's Encrypt, I believe).
(BTW, you don't have to have your own domain for this. If you aren't use a custom domain with Fastmail apparently you can still publish static websites from your file hosting space. It will just be on one of the subdomains).
Fastmail accounts also include DNS hosting. If you use them for your DNS then all of this can be managed from the settings in the Fastmail client, which is convenient.
If you go through comments on some popular post from the golden age of blogging (~2011?), where people's names would link to their sites, the free wordpress.com or whatever blogspot blogs are up much more often than the custom domain ones.
Funnily enough, often the last post on the free blog will be the announcement of switching to a domain, now inactive.
If you want to write, just write.
You are completely right but also I can quit the desire to review and revise. Ultimately it is a good thing and an exercise in persistence but sometimes it's a grind.
Been blogging almost monthly since the late aughts, I am just being a complainer.
Gave up after a dozen page scrolls...
[1] https://statamic.com/
like the time put in to it or the consequences of having it all out there in the public domain etc