Wordpress & Jekyll

I was a Wordpress user since 2011. Constant updates, vulnerabilities, and hosting costs quickly turned a once beloved platform into a cumbersome burden. I wanted something simple. I moved to Jekyll, a static site generator, in 2018. Learning to configure and deploy it was a steep learning curve. Nevertheless, I found myself enjoying the simplicity it offered, at least for a while.

Golang to Hugo

In 2021 I started learning Golang. I learnt about another static site generator based on Golang called Hugo. I loved Hugo’s speed, performance, and the freedom to leverage the power of Go templating language.

Blogging is simple with Hugo. Once the theme and design of the website is finalized, I can solely concentrate on creating content.

What delighted me even more was that Hugo supported writing content in markdown, a format I had grown fond of using with Obsidian for note-taking.

There are different CMS available for managing Hugo sites. I have experimented with DecapCMS, Tina, Frontmatter. I will be writing in dept about those.

The book, Hugo in Action, is a gem for those delving into Hugo by Atishay Jain. The content is structured well. I really liked the section where the author splits Hugo configuration for easy management. The chapter on Hugo Modules is what got me invested in Hugo Modules.

I am migrating some of my old projects to Hugo. Recently I deployed a community magazine, Culturecrossroads.ca using Hugo.

From a cybersecurity perspective, static HTML pages consist of plain, static content without server-side processing or dynamic interactions. There are limited opportunities for attackers to exploit vulnerabilities directly on the HTML pages themselves.

Things I love about Hugo

  • Page Bundles: A simple and elegant way to manage content, making organizing my blog posts a breeze.
  • Hugo Modules: A modular approach that simplified managing my Hugo website, allowing for easier customization and theme integration.
  • Deployment: How difficult is it to deploy static HTML pages? The options are unlimited ranging from AWS S3, Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, and so on.
  • Shortcodes: Markdown’s hidden superpower.

Tech stack for this site

  • Platform: Hugo
  • Theme: Custom fork of PaperMod.
  • Hugo Modules:
  • Deployment: Cloudflare Pages

References