Goldilocks and the three CMSes
Ever the glutton for punishment, I’m building this site from scratch. Of course, this isn't necessary as several blogging platforms exist, with Wordpress, Wix and Squarespace being among the most popular.
I’ve tried them all but none quite fit: they were either missing flexibility, too expensive or I just didn’t gel with their workflow or interface. Still, with Wordpress serving over 30% of all sites online, these platforms are working for a lot of people.
I have a love/hate relationship with Wordpress in particular. I’ve used it for years and I like how easy it is to publish something, but I find the interface too overwhelming these days. Plus, unless I purchase premium themes, if I really want to tinker, i’d need to use the self-hosted version. I’ve done this before and was able to scratch that itch by creating child themes and custom post types, but there’s a heaviness to Wordpress in my mind that i’m keen to get away from.
I’ve been looking for a simpler blogging platform for a long time. Something that allows me to just write without lots of distractions, but also lets me tweak things under the hood to make things look how I want. I really like Ghost - it’s built for writers - but again, for the sporadic writing I do, the hosted version is prohibitively expensive for me at the moment. Goodness knows I have a long and sorry history of paying a premium for services I never use😅
Among the more affordable and flexible options I would recommend include Write.as and Micro.blog. I really like these services, for differing reasons. I also briefly dabbled with Publii. Ultimately, I decided to build this site from scratch using the Eleventy Static Site Generator, but I appreciate not everyone will have the patience for that.
This isn’t a technical blog, but I do want to chronicle my web development approach. I thought I could start things off by introducing some of these less technical options.
Write.as
Write.as allows you to just write and has a generous hosting plan: at one time I split this blog into four different Write.as blogs because I thought i’d benefit from the logical seperation between my interests (spoiler: I didn’t). It has a clean and minimal interface, and support for custom themes and newsletters.
It also has a set of core principles that are appealing to anyone trying to take more ownership of their online data. It’s actually a collection of complementary services including the Wordpress Reader-like Read.as, the photo service Snap.as and the comment service Remark.as. I’ll admit, this seperation - even though well integrated - did feel strange to me when I first discovered the service. However, it makes more sense now that i’m embracing the Indie Web.
It’s a really nice platform that’s very quick to get started with, and if I weren’t enamoured with Eleventy right now, I think I would probably be using it.
Micro.blog
Micro.blog feels similar in some ways though it’s goals are slightly different. While Write.as has indie web features like the ability to federate (interact) with services like Mastodon, Micro.blog is built with indie web principles and technologies at its core. It uses the concept of feeds to allow you to pull several different services into your timeline, including your Micro.blog blog. It also supports WebMentions. The creator, Manton, has written a really nice book making the case for Indie Microblogging that i’m enjoying.
What also sets it apart from other services for me is it’s focus on curating a more personal experience: the Discover timeline is hand curated rather than driven by an algorithm, and hashtags are intentionally left out in favour of emojis to design out bullying and harassment. This idea of intentionally designing kindness into the web (and questioning the services that don’t) is something that has stuck with me since following the work of Laura Kalbag, initially for accessibility, and in the last few years, their progress towards the small web. Their Accessible unethical technology talk is a recommended read.
Micro.blog also allows for a lot of customisation, either through plugins or by creating your own themes. I think, particularly for people coming from Wordpress, it’s an approachable platform. It’s been running for years but has a nice grassroots feeling, and a helpful community, that is very appealing. The only thing that put me off is I found the blogging side of it a little rough around the edges. I haven’t made my life any easier by going the DIY route though.
I do like the intent behind it and, though i’m no longer using the blog features, i’m currently piping my notes feed into my Micro.blog timeline.
Publii
I admittedly didn’t give Publii too much attention but I think it’s an interesting alternative. Unlike other hosted options, Publii lives on your personal computer and allows you to create a static website using a very familiar editor. Where you then put that site is up to you.
Having a reliable CMS is something that, I feel, is currently missing, should you decide to roll your own website. Several options exist, but the level of technical knowledge required makes them very unapproachable for non-developers in my opinion. For all its faults, the convenience with which Wordpress allows you to write your posts and manage your media, is a really big selling point.
I think Publii is a an interesting middleground between building your own site from scratch and being locked into a hosted platform, though I think there’s still a technical barrier to entry that makes for a bumpy onboarding.
Next post i’ll get into more of the detail of how i’m building this site.
Photo by Sheelah Brennan on Unsplash.
This is my inaugural post in this year’s NanoPoblano. From the Cheer Peppers website:
“National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) is a month-long blog event in November, celebrated by writing a post every single day. This tradition sprouted many other traditions– small groups that regularly go into the fray together, or even folks who level up and do it with the challenge of a theme. A million and a half years ago (est.), we started our own nano-tradition, and call it NanoPoblano. It’s different than most others.
It’s less organized. There’s less pressure. It’s more about the community than the challenge. We aren’t pulling people off rosters or anything if they can’t keep up. There aren’t qualifiers to sign up. You can be new. You can have a photo blog, or a recipe blog, or a haiku blog. Everyone can be a Participant.
We’ve taken “Post every single day” to mean– support blogs, every single day. That usually means writing every day (and that’s a challenge that everyone benefits from trying!) But we also recognize that the ones who read and cheer us on are important too. We have CheerPeppers who don’t necessarily post that month at all, but try to read or like or comment on a post of our participants every day.
We have Participants who do re-posts. We have Participants who spend the 30 days committed to bringing life to their blog, even that if that means not writing some days, while they work on their themes or leave comments from folks they’d like to build community with.”