The Best Platform for Personal Blogs

In the previous post, I explained why I prefer not to publish my content on platforms like Medium. But then a question arose: "Is there any free opportunity to create a personal space?"

The answer is yes, and in fact, this blog uses such an opportunity.

When selecting a platform to publish my content, I have some preferences:

1. I don't want my texts to disappear when I'm gone. This is the problem with paid services - they serve you until you have credits in your credit cards. I understand that every service will shut down someday, but as a human, I want to make my digital life as long-lasting as possible. Therefore, I'm looking for free services.
2. There are plenty of static site generators available, where you write in a markdown file, execute a command, and the tool (such as Hugo) turns the markdowns into HTML and CSS files. You can then upload these files onto a static file hosting service (most of which are free). I've tried these tools, but I prefer writing on Medium-style editors instead of in my VScode, and I personally prefer having my posts in a database rather than in files.
3. I don't want to deal with hosts and servers for my personal blog, even if there are free servers available.
4. If I can use my personal domain, that would be great.

After some research, I found two services that meet my considerations:

1. WordPress.com: WordPress is the most widely used CMS on earth. You can do almost anything with WordPress, and wordpress.com provides a free plan for hosting your blog. It satisfies three of my considerations. All my content is stored in a database, and I can backup my blog and restore it on all other WordPress instances. Unfortunately, in the free plan, they don't allow me to use a custom domain.
2. Digitalpress.blog: I used Ghost for my other blogs for a while. Ghost is a minimal and lovely CMS for writers. Unlike WordPress, Ghost is here to do just one thing and do it great. Digitalpress.blog is a service that gives you a personal Ghost site with your own custom domain for free. In the free plan, they limit storage to 1GB.

I chose Ghost and migrated all of my blogs to DigitalPress. I think the 1GB storage covers all of my needs.

Ghost editor is minimal, and you will have an interesting writing experience on it. Additionally, they offer some minimal and clean themes in their free plan that I think are suitable.

If you know of any other services or have experience with DigitalPress, feel free to share in the comments section.