Hey Club! This is my first ‘New topic’ and only my second post on the Club. Hopefully the first of many more. It’s great to be part of the MoT community.
I’m looking to start a blog to share my ideas and experiences around Testing and Quality topics.
If you have a blog, what platform do you use?
Do you have any views on which platforms may be better than others? What are your reasons?
I was looking to use Substack, but following discussion in the ‘chat’, on today’s TwiT a few alternatives were suggested.
From 2002 to 2024 I used WordPress to have 300+ testing posts. In a topic pivot last year I set up on Ghost. I’m happy to pay a little bit monthly (for both) to have my writings ad-free. The political critique of substack kept me off that place.
I was on Substack for quite some time and really appreciated the growth and exposure. However, much later, I found out that Substack expressed support for free speech in the guise of allowing anyone to say anything, regardless of the harm it could cause to others. Here is that post:
While Substack is saying that they will maintain a hands-off approach in regards to free speech, no one (in my opinion) should feel unsafe in any space. We need places to figure out our lives. And, being on a platform that is willing to be okay with Hate speech (https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/some-thoughts-on-the-substack-controversy) is not okay with me.
When I made the move from Substack to Beehiiv, transferring the content was easy. There were some things that needed cleanup, and I’m working on that now, one post at a time. I do miss getting all the recommendations that Substack offers. And, there are lots of good writers on Substack who talk about human rights in healthy ways. They are doing good work and have a huge following. I can see why moving might be harder for them because of that. And, I can see why they don’t want to leave, because of what they are writing about. My readership is small, and at the time, I only had one paid subscriber, so I chose to go to Beehiiv.
I’d say Beehiiv has everything that Substack has except the community around it, which was sad for me to lose. And, I can only make three blogs versus Substack, I don’t think there is a limit? But I am learning how to live and work in a digital world, and finding spaces that align with my values can be tricky. It’s a personal choice. In the end, making the choice that you feel good about at the end of the day is what matters.
I hope this helps. Feel free to ask any more questions as they come up for you. And, thanks for asking the question!
That’s super interesting; thanks for sharing, Judy.
I wasn’t aware of the controversy surrounding Substack, despite already using them for the ‘newsletter’ functionality of a blog I’ve been running a few years.
My existing blog campaigns against stigma and surrounding LGBT+ and Mental Health conditions - and as such this isn’t really compatible with what I’ve just learned about Substack and their content policies.
I’ve just created an account with beehiiv and I’m having a play. Thank you for the suggestion.
PS - my other blog can be found at beingchrispratt.com. It’s hosted on a Weebly, a website builder - but functionality around blogging and newsletters is lacking hence I don’t want to use the same for my testing blog - and in slower time will probably migrate it across to beehiiv too.
I have issues with Substack because of all the reasons mentioned.
I personally always recommend Ghost. Their ethics are great. No VC money, set up as non-profit, actively building and competing against Substack/Beehiiv, plus they have a real commitment to the Fediverse, which I love.
I have my own domain and web server where I host my website/blog which I create with Publii. It creates a static website with a rich WYSISWYG editor (it’s a desktop app, no login on your server). No database and PHP and therefore faster and more secure. And easy to use as well.
I prefer not to give most of my heavy content to a platform, creating a source of user retention, while they can restrict access to it at any time.
I also recommend Ghost and use it for my blog. I started out on Wordpress but it felt clunky and bloated for what I needed (just an old-fashioned blog )
Can you expand on what you mean by “the secret keeping it online”?
I just mean the platform behind it, in this context. Although I realise there’s a lot more to it - in terms of continually creating content - but this thread was intended to be really about blogging platforms.
I’m currently focusing on working up some content to get it started. For me, this is the most important bit and this filters through to what I’m looking for from the blogging platform.
I’m looking for something that’s low maintenance and easy to use. For me, that rules out self hosted options such as wordpress. I’ve hosted sites before, but I’d prefer not to.
I’d like it to have newsletter functionality built in - so that makes it easier to share my work with those who may be interested in following me.
I’d also like something that supports at least two publications under one hood. As previously mentioned, I already have one blog, so it’d be easier if I could run both from the same place.
I don’t mind paying a modest monthly fee - of course these platforms cost money to develop and maintain, however I’m not expecting to make any money from it which limits what I’d be prepared to spend.
It needs to support custom domains - for the reasons you mention.
I guess I’m being realistic about readership at this stage. I’m not expecting huge numbers of hits or newsletter subscribers. I’m doing this mainly as a tool to use writing to consolidate and cement my self development and learning. Anything I can give back to the community in terms of value as blog/newsletter for me feels like the bonus.
Looking at Ghost, for two publications I’d be paying 25USD per month which feels too much while starting out. I currently use Substack to provide the newsletter side of my existing blog so this is a possibility which meets all of the above, but certainly considering beehiiv as an alternative from an ethical standpoint.
My only concern with beehiiv, linked to what you said about switching platforms, is that it’s VC funded - which makes it’s long term future difficult to predict. This is perhaps not a concern with the way Ghost is set up.
I’ve always used WordPress for mine. It certainly does the job, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it, necessarily. I don’t have strong feelings towards it, in any direction. I think there was also some drama around the .com vs .org versions, but I didn’t really get into the topic.
I prefer having something on my own website, rather than posting to Medium or similar. I just feel more in control over my own content this way, and I don’t want my stuff to end up behind someone else’s paywall.
A couple of general tips / requests that you didn’t ask for:
Include publication dates on posts
Have a search function
Don’t organise posts by year and month, like a diary, have proper categories
Totally agree on publication dates - it does annoy me when I see articles are published online without them. And search - yes absolutely.
I hadn’t really thought too much about tagging and categorising my blogs - but this is a great idea to help new people discovering the blog to navigate to what they’re interested in. I’ll be sure to implement that.
wordpress → My blog udzial.com is there and I have been using it for years, They have lot of themes, lot of plugin to do almost everything. You can even have it for free by creating something like yournameordomain.wordpress.com
Medium - I also write on Gaurav Khurana – Medium . Good platform if you just want to write. Easily you can monetize as well by buying a subscription which is cheap. you can organize stuff but just blog posts are there. They have good reach.
GitHub Pages - Very recently i created my blog http://gauravkhurana.in which is based on docusaurus or you can use jekyll which is a little simpler. In docusaurus you use markdown files mostly and its a little technical compared to others two platforms
+1 to this. I also just recently learned that publishing on your personal blog first then on Medium is a thing people do to increase their reach. There’s even an option to import your post from your blog as a medium story. Like running your own syndicated column
I use wordpress, mostly because its easy to setup and use as well as being well supported. If had more time and inclination to build a site and have more control without the wordpress restrictions, then I would probably look at 11ty as we used that at a company I worked for previously for their tech blog and it was quite nice.
I have played around with cross-posting to medium, but honestly I gave up as I got very little traffic to blogs posted there and I have good SEO on my own website and so get what I feel are good amounts of traffic.
Actually something I just thought of that was a huge benefit when starting with my blog are some of the plugins available in wordpress. Specifically one that I use that helps with search engine optimisation.I particularly like it because it helps me with writing style. Ensures I don’t use long rambling sentences, etc. Things like that are super useful when you are starting out.
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