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What do you use for your product's blog?

Do you self host wordpress? another solution?
Or do you use a 3rd party blogging platform?

--- UPDATE
After further research and inspired by the great proposals, I finally went for Tumblr as a product blog platform for now. I am actually surprisingly happy with it. Why?

  • Managed (no worries about reliability)
  • Has a mobile app, no file upload or git push to update the blog
  • Offers great customizability (down to the HTML code)
  • Integrates with Disqus and Google Analytics
  • Can be optimized for SEO
  • Free and has custom domains

Initial result after some fiddling is available here:
https://blog.monitoro.xyz/

Strongly recommend it to bootstrapped IHers.

  1. 2

    Netlify and static HTML/CSS

    1. 1

      Thanks @Maciej for your answer!

      Did you ever want to update it from mobile?
      What's your workflow to write new articles?

      1. 1

        What do you mean update it from mobile?

        Google docs -> convert to markdown -> push live

        1. 1

          Oh okay, that’s cool!

          Is that a script that does conversion + push? Does it run on your laptop or in the cloud?

  2. 2

    We used ghost and then converted to static site and then hosted on s3. A lot of hard work but we wanted our site to be static.

    We have nearly finished a blogging feature in https://versoly.com/ that will replace the ghost blog and make posting content 10 times easier for us.

    We also see others use Gatsby but that comes with its own issues.

    1. 1

      Hey @volkandkaya, thank you for your answer!

      Versoly looks great. If I had built the website on it I would probably use the blogging feature directly whenever it's available.

      Would it be basically an integrated CMS + blog frontend?

      A lot of hard work but we wanted our site to be static.

      As I'm suspecting :D so the only way in this case to publish new articles is via git I guess?

      1. 1

        Would it be basically an integrated CMS + blog frontend?

        Yes, we're also looking into APIs and webhooks so you can build on Versoly and host yourself.

        As I'm suspecting :D so the only way in this case to publish new articles is via git I guess?

        Close we have a script that uploads to s3

        What is your current site built on?

        1. 1

          Yes, we're also looking into APIs and webhooks so you can build on Versoly and host yourself.

          Do you envision building both the backend and the frontend in Versoly? What's the artifact that you can host yourself?

          What is your current site built on?
          It's just static HTML pages (with a build pipeline for CSS and JS). Based on an HTML template I got some time ago.

          1. 1

            Do you envision building both the backend and the frontend in Versoly?

            Not sure what you mean.

            What's the artifact that you can host yourself?

            Will basically be a zip file with html files in that you can host on your server

            1. 1

              Just curious about how the API will work in practice. So I understand then it will be hosted at versoly.com then?

              1. 1

                From headless CMS examples I have seen, they send a webhook to Netlify and that restarts the build process for a Gatsby blog and during that build it will recollect the data from the headless CMS.

                For Versoly API you could have a script in the JS build pipeline that pulls down the files.

                I have seen some interesting solutions where people will install a little PHP script that acts as a REST API on a server.

                1. 1

                  Alright that makes sense!

                  Thank you for your explanation, and good luck for shipping this new feature!

  3. 1

    We are using self-hosted Wordpress.com at Howuku for blogging.

    1. 1

      Thank you @donaldng for your insights!

      What was your experience running your own wordpress instance? How do you manage backups and updates?

      1. 1

        Pretty easy for anyone with technical knowledge to setup. They have a one click installation setup where you can have a blog up and running within minutes. I never done any backup so far, not sure about this part. Update is very easy as well, it is usually just a single click update and the site automatically put up maintenance page for the whole duration of upgrades.

        1. 1

          Thank you for the detailed insights!

          (And I strongly suggest you backup your database :D)

  4. 1

    Netlify and Hugo

    1. 1

      Thanks @onar for your answer (you have a nice name :D)

      What's your reason for using Hugo over a simpler off-the-shelf blogging solution?

  5. 1

    Wordpress hosted on Google Cloud via CyberPanel.

    1. 1

      Thanks @VVillhouse

      Any reason you didn't go with wordpress.com itself or bluehost / wp-engine?

      1. 1

        I've been using/designing Wordpress sites for nearly a decade now so I'm very comfortable with the platform. Also, I've been generally interested in learning more about Google Cloud for awhile now.

        As an SEO, I'm interested in testing the speed of the platform on GCP vs. more traditional hosting environments. Lastly, it was a good use of $300 dollars in free credit you get with a new sign-up.

        1. 1

          That makes sense! Thank you for sharing your rationale!

  6. 1

    Ghost Pro. Downside is it's on a subdomain

    1. 1

      Thank you @Mathias458 for your answer.
      I like Ghost but it's a significantly expensive compared to the competition.
      Any reason you chose it over other solutions? Is it a product blog or a personal one?

      1. 1

        Product blog.

        I chose it because of its great UX: easy to use and simple focus: has just what you need for blogging. SEO fully baked in including sitemaps and AMP pages.

        Managed because I need to spend time on content, product building, marketing, not maintenance.

        Downside of Ghost Pro is it lives on a subdomain which means it doesn't share your product domain's rank authority. We tried fixing that by using Cloudflare Edge Workers but failed, posted that story here on IH.

        1. 1

          Interesting! Thank you for the detailed insights!

          Are you looking strictly for a low technical solution? Using a reverse proxy, you could move it to your domain in a sub path. Let me know if you need some help on this.

          1. 1

            Thanks For the advice we'll try it 👍

  7. 1

    Managed wordPress hosting.

    1. 1

      Thank you @SEOguy for your answer.

      Which service if you don't mind sharing?

      1. 1

        WPX and Kinsta are good.

        1. 1

          Thank you for the reference. Quite interesting providers!

  8. 1

    WPEngine...I can't do everything (time)...great support!!

    1. 1

      Thanks @gbardwell for your answer!

      Looks a bit expensive. Are you running several blogs?

  9. 1

    This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

    1. 1

      Thank you @kamroot for your insights!
      Do you have a specific use case for something customizable (NextJS) over an off the shelf blog solution?

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