What is the best platform for starting a blog?

Thank you all for your suggestions. It seems that I’ll have to make a choice between WordPress and Ghost. Quick question: Is it possible to migrate a Ghost blog to WordPress later? (Sorry, I’m naive about blogging stuff.)

(Sorry, I’m naive about blogging stuff.)

You should try to use all listed software above. It’s like a buying new car without test drive.

Is it possible to migrate a Ghost blog to WordPress

You can migrate anywhere if still own your content.

I suggest Medium too. It has a big and active community, you don’t have to setup anything (jut create a free account) and it is full of readers that actually want to read contents (people can also find your posts easy).

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Let me just add that it’s easy to get caught up in the technical details and endlessly fiddle… we are programmers after all!

More important than finding the perfect platform is just starting to write. Once you have established a habit of writing about your code/work/learning, it’s relatively easy to move the content somewhere else.

So the best platform for starting a blog is the one that gets you writing a post asap.

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Ghost gets you started immidiately.
No databases no php no LAMP necessary. It runs on Heroku for free if necessary and or digital ocean for about $5-$10
How is Wordpress (Php) easier than Ghost (JS) to use?

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Here’s a fast and free way to test Ghost on Heroku…
No code requires just a couple fields to fill in and your good to go.
Please try Ghost before you go off into the Wordpress abyss.

Press this button l:
Deploy

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This wasn’t recent or as easy to find:

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Issue with the button:

The account "xxx" is not permitted to install the mailgun add-on at this time. If you believe this is an error please contact support and reference ID 852535e0-55d8-4a13-be2e-be0dbc684cf1 when opening an ticket.

This means that Heroku needs a credit card on file before you can use their free addons.

I just test the button and it still works.

I am an experienced developer and I would have to say, hands-down, WordPress is the easiest to use and learn. It was originally designed for blogs and it’s only gotten better. Plus, it’s probably the most widely used for blogs.

I’ve added new clean credit card and see the same error. Maybe you use a paid plan.

Anyway I’m switched to OpenShift. The newbies always can use this hardcore way. Plus do not forget about CDN for better speed and stability.

I have ~5 years of Wordpress experience and can affirm that Ghost is much more simple, hackable and use modern technologies.

A pay plan is not necessary.

Make sure that you fill out an app name yourself, instead of having Heroku choose one for you.

Also, remove YOURAPPNAME from the Heroku URL and replace it with your own chosen app name from before.

Example:

new-ghost-blog

https://new-ghost-blog.herokuapp.com

This is the only reason I would think that is causing the issue. If you leave the first input blank and don’t change the URL to include your app name. Your app name will not be included in your URL causing mailgun to fail since it can’t find a matching URL.

@liberaltech sorry, I stole your time! The Heroku support said “It looks like your account was flagged by an automated process.”

https://ghost007.herokuapp.com/

Did it have anything to do with the Heroku button or a routine Heroku automated process?

Im glad you got it working. If you need help updating Ghost I can help with that too.

Guess my account was flagged as ‘bad’ because I used a virtual credit card from ‘virtual bank’, maybe hackers and crackers use it too often. The support just disabled the locks.

Guess you mean the edit package.json, run npm update and git commit+push :smiley_cat: Anyway big thank you.

I recommend getting started with a personal GitHub Pages site. It’s relatively easy to get started, especially if you follow their instructions on getting a template up and running, and also follow all the special notes from Jekyll about using GitHub Pages. It’s a great learning experience.

You can then also use that to set up your resume/CV and it’s already present in your GitHub account (if you want to publicize your code work and projects), and then you can link out to other resources / Project Pages on GitHub Pages too!

If you decide to go that way, then I’d fork a template from another GitHub Pages site that you like, and that will get you up and running pretty fast.

FYI: If you have your own server (or if you have access to one), you can set up your own blog using the open-source Wordpress. That’s what I did. Wordpress.org doesn’t show ads or charge for premium, but you do need your own server to host it on. That’s the main difference between Wordpress.Org and Wordpress.Com.

Hope this helps!
AwesomeIndustry

Man, thank you for this! I was just trying to figure out if I could try Ghost for free and the documentation for self-hosted Ghost was making my head spin. I’m new to Ghost and Heroku, but have wanted to dig into both, so thank you for getting me started super fast :raised_hands: .

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A bit late to this reply but I’m glad this helped :+1:t5:

I have personally used both the blogger and WordPress. In my opinion WordPress is easier to use and offers a lot of features. Besides providing complete tool kit for a blog; it also offers tons of plugins to add more functionalities like online store and forum.
I personally prefer WordPress because it has amazing community and you can find tons of resources if you find yourself stuck somewhere.