A blog without a static site generator
Static blogs are fast, cheap to host and last for years. The usual way to make one is a static site generator, and that's where many people stop: a command line, a build step and a theme to learn before the first post. You can have the same result without any of that.
What a generator actually does
Hugo, Jekyll and Eleventy take a folder of Markdown posts and a few templates, and write out HTML: a page per post, a list of posts, tag pages, an RSS feed and a sitemap. Then you upload that output, or push it to Git so a service builds it for you. The posts are easy. The rest is tooling:
- installing the generator (and, for some, Ruby or Node),
- learning its template language and its theme's settings,
- running a build before every publish, or setting up Git and a build service,
- keeping it all working when versions change.
Without a generator, by hand
For a handful of posts, plain HTML works: one page per post, and a list on the home page you update yourself. Server Side Includes keep the header and footer in one file. What gets tedious is everything around the posts: adding each one to the list, the tag pages, and an RSS feed, which is fiddly XML to write by hand.
With a blog built into your host
Pagehaus does the generator's job for you, on the server, when you press Publish:
- Open your site's Blog tab and start a blog. It uses your site's header and footer if you have them.
- Write a post in Markdown. The preview shows it in your design as you type; paste images straight in.
- Press Publish. The post's page, the list of posts, tag pages, the RSS feed and the sitemap are written into your site as plain HTML files.
Nothing runs when someone reads your blog: they get plain files, as fast as any generator's output. Your posts are Markdown files in your site, so you can still edit them over SFTP, and take everything with you if you leave.
When a generator is still the better choice
- You want your posts in Git, with every change reviewed or built by a CI pipeline.
- You need features beyond a blog: documentation sites, many languages, data-driven pages.
- You enjoy the tooling. That's a fine reason too.
More: how the Pagehaus blog works, and blog hosting on Pagehaus.