Stack choice for this site
In short, my goal was to get a simple and functional blog up and running as fast as possible. This is what I ended up using:
- absolutely cheapest Hetzner ARM VPS running Ubuntu
- nginx with a Let's Encrypt cert easily acquired through certbot
- 11ty static site generator with the base blog theme and code living in Github
All of this is subject to change but having had very limited available time at the computer, I have to say that setting this up so far was a breeze at about 3ish hours (including researching possible solutions and linking up the DNS).
Why this stack? #
I already had the server setup for other projects so not many decisions to make there. My experience with Hetzner has been pretty flawless over the past few years, pricing also pretty good.
I have no interesting explanation for why I picked nginx as the web server other than it works and I trust it. Had forgotten pretty much everything, but not much needed to be changed in the default config, so it didn't take too long. The certbot I have used previously without issues and can't recommend it enough - super quick and easy way to get an TLS certificate for HTTPS up and running (with automatic renewal no less).
As for the site itself I use a SSG at work regularly and while I've got a complicated relationship with Hugo specifically, I have really grown to like them as a category. Easy setup, markdown content, not much extra baggage for simple sites.
Plans for the future #
This is by no means the end of the road. I have some ideas floating around including, but not limited to:
-
dynamic theming, possibly taking into account the current weather where I'm at
-
CI/CD that auto-builds and deploys after file changes in a Nextcloud instance
-
basic analytics from parsing ngnix logs
-
those cool footnotes in a sidebar everybody seems to have these days
...handnotes?
before you get mad, I'll have you know my dad joke permit is snoring next to me and will bite if provoked!
- Next: What is this blog?