3d ago

Recommendation Self Hosting Blog

Hi everyone, I am running truenas scale on a modest home NAS. I have got some of my services tunneling to some subdomains via cloud flare zero trust and it seems to be fine. I am looking for advice on how to self host a blog and if I can continue that same method. It would be great to run it to the main domain instead of a sub domain, but honestly I don’t care too much. I expect none to very little traffic. I am looking for an app that I can run relatively easy and makes blogging for myself (images + text) as frictionless as possible. I am having trouble finding a guide for this and any that I do are on running much older versions of truenas scale.

I have heard good things about Ghost but couldn’t get it installed properly. Is Wordpress my best bet? I read somewhere that it can be sketchy opening up Wordpress to the internet so I am apprehensive. Any advice?

16 comments

hugo on GitHub pages for me, but you can also run Hugo locally and use code-server to update it

Are you looking for advice regarding administration or the platform?
I say for a simple blog it's hard to beat Hugo. There are plenty of nice themes and easily adjustable, too with a bit of html/css.
- I guess both? Platform recommendations like yours will help point me in the right direction to figure out the admin part bit by bit. Much appreciated
  
  If you're not very set on hosting at home, hosting a static Hugo page directly on Github Pages is incredibly convenient and easy (and free.) With the right Github Action, updating the site is as simple as pushing content to the main branch and it automatically deploys. And should Github ever give you a reason to do so, moving away is as simple as copying your static files to any other webhost and pointing your domain there instead.
  Edit: It's of course equally easy to deploy on your NAS - just a basic nginx serving the directory with your static site that Hugo generated.

I use ghost and can totally recommend it. I installed it in 5 min. via docker compose in combination with mysql.
The fact that it is low on resources, has tons of features and easy code injection, makes it perfect. WordPress is bloated with to much nonsense. If you want to see a good ghost example: https://itsfoss.com/
PS only unnecessary are these stupid Twitter and Facebook integrations but they can be deactivated.
If OP uses docker, I would share my compose.yml if wanted.

Check out GetSimple. It's a flat file system (so no database to mess with) and can run with just basic PHP (though it'll guide you through installing modules if you want fancy urls, etc). Super easy to set up. I've been using it for years without a hitch.

I have grav for a super basic site and blog I never update. Its like flat files of text you can just edit i also use cloudflare tunnel for it

Another option that has not been mentioned yet is WriteFreely https://writefreely.org/
- I use this, it's fine, but development on the open version is very very slow.
  And they still haven't fixed my pet bug: they introduced Unix socket listening, I found that enabling it prevented upgrades, reported the bug with details and repro, and nobody cares. The workaround is simple, delete the socket file before every start. But I remain confused why a bug that prevents upgrades remains.

Pelican - static site generator is very simple

I've been using hubzilla for this, its a mix of blog/social network/cms.

WordPress core is not particularly 'sketchy', it just gets tricky when you start adding plugins. There's no vetting on the quality of plugins available on the WordPress.org repo, and even less in places like Envato. The vast majority of plugins and themes are pure shit because they are made by companies trying to take advantage of the people who don't know any better and their goal is to make them as appealing as possible rather than making a quality product and letting that be the appeal.
WordPress is fine if you want a blog and don't mind the more out-of-the-box experience they provide, with the exception of a few plugins that have proven their quality over time. Though, as a new user how do they know what plugins are good? You don't. There's tons of info out there for WordPress, but again the vast majority is catered towards people who just want a quick solution and can be taken advantage of to be sold a product.
I think you'll be fine starting off with a basic WordPress blog while you try and test out other options to see how they stack up and how they work for you. Just be very careful about which plugins or themes you install. You can use Roots/Bedrock to help secure the site and make it work a bit closer to a modern platform since you manage it with Composer. Or you can use ClassicPress if you don't want Gutenberg shoved down your throat.
Other options would be 11ty, Hugo, or a Nextjs based site.
- I see. That makes total sense. Thank you for the information!