Ghost CMS

The old site looked like this.

It was nice. It’s clean.

It got me off the ground.

But… it was painful.

Notion

I run a developer journal in Notion.

I would pre-write all my text in Notion. Think about it on the train, work on it…

Then, when it came time to post… it was clunky.

So much copy/paste into a different tool.

And then I’d read it again on a train or something, find a bug… and have to go back and edit it… both in Ghost and in Notion—if I want the journal part to stay true.

It also means I can bring in and publish one of the 300 or so dev journal entries pretty much instantly.

Things changing

As the project has progressed, the old blog started to look very unprofessional. I’d have to add a lot more content about where I’m at. I’d also need a new home page and start populating it with product.

The big driver was simply that I could customize.

Also, the remote-platform work I’m doing (more coming on this) is really starting to come along, and I’m really wanting to post more about it. I just—

It’s cheap.

Ghost CMS was costing like $100 USD a year… it’s not a big cost.

But the GCP on a basic minimum config is likely to be close to 0, if not 0.

Sure, it was still some time to set up… and some AI credit… maybe ~$10.

And it was just plain easy.

I know, I know… don’t roll your own…

But really, why not? …

If you’re a software developer, it now seems like it’s easier to just roll your own.

I got the site to this point (no integrations) on my phone, sitting in the car.

Can it be hacked? Maybe—although, I don’t think it really matters. The Notion API is read-only and the GCP instance is nerfed to bare-minimum specs with a bunch of flags and warnings.

And even easier to maintain

Even now, as I shut down my Ghost CMS account, I find myself poking around in someone else’s UI, navigating through loads of features made for other people.

This site doesn’t even have an admin… I want a feature, I just ask AI to build it, and then push it up into the pipeline.

Want a giant 3D logo… just add one. Want this button over there? Just make AI do it.

Want to turn a notion toggle list into an expandable details section?

details

Its done in 5 mins

This is what a notion toggle list looks like:

Its great for Notion. But when adding it in a blog, its not so clear that the little triangle expands for more content.

But…

The one thing Ghost does well is manage subscriber lists and handle social media and email integration.

That’s a big deal for a lot of people, and I thought it would be a key feature for me too. However, currently it’s simply not as valuable as having a better-looking and more flexible site. I can always just use Mailchimp if I need it…

or roll my own…

Oh and…

It’s still the old logo in the top left corner…

I got some feedback that its a little jarring and the shadows come through as muddy.

I totally agree. Best I get it fixed.

So i fixed it

good enough for now