A simple blogging platform for writers and beginners

It is hard to build a simple blogging platform. Everyone has a different idea of how the blog should be.

The definition of blogging platform is so wide that in essence no code platforms, CMS, programming frameworks, and twitter, all can be considered a blogging platform.

I think the only way to make a simple one is to narrow down to your target audience.

I wanted to build a simple blogging platform for my needs which is why I built lykhari. It is pronounced lee-khaa-ree and it means writer in urdu.

This post is the long version. Here is the short one.

Carry on if you want the reasoning.

Who it is for

Someone who wants to write. If that is you, avoid Wordpress, Blogger, Substack, Squarespace and what not.

You don't need to learn tech, html, css, hosting.

You don't need a lot of money. Heck you can start for free.

The platform should take you from wanting to write to writing in 1 minute. That is what lykhari does.

It's so simple and minimal that you get to writing quick. No distractions. No plugins. No hosting issues. No bugs. No optimization problems.

You, your thoughts and a simple blogging platform that gets out of your way.

Bloggers come in all shapes and sizes. This one is for writers. Non fiction writers, fiction writers, poets, essayists, technical writers, academics, journalists.

You are more than a blogger.

A writer.

Writers have very unique needs as compared to traditional blogging. Most blogging platforms are made for companies, marketeers, social media managers, magazines, publishing houses.

In practice that has turned out to mean poets, essayists, book reviewers, and people keeping a journal in public. I did not plan that, it is just who showed up. Some of them are on the blogs of lykhari page if you want to see what the writing looks like before you decide.

If you are a beginner

Most beginners get an advice to start with either Blogger.com or Wordpress.com.

Both were amazing choices 10 years ago. In todays internet they are not so great anymore.

Let me explain. Every blogger site looks dated. Utterly unprofessional, uncool, and mostly ugly.

Wordpress can be made to look beautiful but it is not for beginners. It's complex, bloated and very complex to get most basic stuff done. It is good for technical people who need a lot of customization.

If you are a beginner and just getting started and came here by searching best blog site for beginners, trust me you don't need that kind of complexity.

Beginners might feel overwhelmed by the idea of starting a blog. Mostly because there are many options out there. Also because most of them choose Wordpress which overwhelms the heck out of beginners. It only gets complicated overtime.

Instead of being a writer, a blogger, an author, an essayist, you end up fidgeting around with Wordpress trying to make it work. I have written separately about what you don't need to start a blog and what you do need.

On lykhari you can have your blog up and running in one minute. No kidding.

The ones to avoid

Wordpress, Webflow, and Squarespace are tailored towards building websites, landing pages, e-commerce and what not. They do enable blogging as well but it is not their primary focus. The immediate downside is the bloat, clutter, and distractions they have on the platform.

WordPress is the most popular platform on the entire internet. 43% of all websites on the internet are made in WordPress. It works but it doesn't just work. You have to work hard to make it work for you. It's bloated, clunky, and archaic. It's more of a website builder than a blogging platform. For many features and optimizations you have to pay and it gets really expensive really fast. Managing it on a custom domain can get expensive too. If you are alright having a blog name like xyz.wordpress.com then it is a decent choice. Otherwise it is not for writers in my opinion. I mention it because it is very popular.

There are experts called Wordpress developers, Webflow developers who handle such websites. They are not good for individuals especially less technical people.

Wix is mostly known for websites and has blogging bolted on. Drag and drop, more design freedom than Blogger, and more bloat with it. Fine if you want a portfolio and a blog in one place. Not fine if you just want to write.

Squarespace is the same idea with better taste. Good templates, all in one, monthly fee. Creatives like it. It is still a website builder that happens to blog.

The closed platforms

There is a pattern worth naming before I go platform by platform.

A decade ago beginners were told Wordpress or Blogger. About 5 years ago it was Wordpress or Medium. These days it is Wordpress or Substack.

Do you see that Wordpress is a constant while everything else gets replaced. The reason is that all the others are closed platforms built by companies that answer to investors instead of customers. Which is why they disappear.

Blogger

Blogger.com is a free blogging platform by Google. It reminds me of old internet days when blogging was a craze and every one was trying to get rich off of it. It worked back in the days, primarily because there weren't good alternatives.

These days it makes little sense to create a blogger/blogspot blog. Here is my reason: https://killedbygoogle.com

That website lists all the products killed by Google. Blogger is also owned by Google and you never know when Google kills it. It's more susceptible to it because it doesn't generate any revenue for Google. For them it's pure loss. For users it works until it doesn't.

Just have a look at the list and you will be convinced about what I am talking about.

Medium

There was a time when medium was a popular favorite on internet. It came as a good alternate to Wordpress and Blogger for online writing.

Then it fell into bloat and mess like most products. It added weird paywalls on readers and tried their best to fail it. ...and they succeeded.

Even their CEO accepted on hacker news that they had failed medium.

Someone asked if people have a negative perception of medium here. 90% people said yes. So, there is a big warning.

It is also a closed platform where you can't build your personal mailing list. You can't export your mailing list and you become locked in. It's not a bad place to write but after you choose Medium you have no choice later down the road, even if Medium doesn't remain viable. That is exactly what happened when Substack took over the concept of Medium with better features.

Free to write. A reading membership is $5/month or $50/year.

Substack

A lot of writers are moving to Substack these days and I understand why. It is easy to start and you get to keep your email list, which is more than most platforms give you.

Before you move though, it is worth asking who pays for all of it.

Substack is funded by investors. It has a better business model than Medium from the start but we don't know if it can last. Substack will put investors above customers any day because the company owes to investors instead of customers.

One example is earlier Substack owners said they won't run Ads on the platform. After raising $100 million they said they might run Ads.

Substack is not profitable which is a huge question mark on the longevity of the platform. When it stops making sense for investors, they will pull the plug.

Substack is also not an independent publishing platform. It's a social media. Social media steals traffic and audience from small and new creators to funnel it to the highest grossing creators. Which is why the top creators get all the views and lime light and small creators struggle badly.

On independent platforms you keep all your traffic and your readers are not shown promoted content from big creators.

Free to write and publish. If you charge readers, Substack takes 10% of subscription revenue plus Stripe's processing fees.

I bet Substack will die and a new platform will emerge. Just like Substack took over Medium, a fresh platform will take over Substack and you will be locked in to Substack. Both are closed platforms built to grow fast and look good on paper. Whether the growth is customer led and sustainable is not their focus.

Pick a platform which is customer funded and profitable instead of investor funded. Those are the businesses playing the long game and they can't betray customers. Medium and Substack like platforms can betray customers but won't betray investors.

The ones built for writers

lykhari

I'll say upfront that this is the one I built, so weigh it accordingly. It is for writers and personal bloggers who want a free subdomain, a simple editor, and the option to add a custom domain, email newsletter, and comments later if you need them.

The only real downside is that it doesn't have the customization and theming options other platforms do. That is deliberate. It keeps you from wasting time on colors and styling. At the end of the day what matters is text. That is what readers are interested in and that is what search engines crawl for.

Bear Blog

About as minimal as it gets. No JavaScript, no tracking, no clutter, just markdown in and a fast page out. It's free, and it stays free unless you want a custom domain.

Free on a bearblog.dev subdomain. The upgrade is $5/month, $49/year, or $189 once for life, which unlocks a custom domain, image uploads, analytics, and up to 10 sites.

It does look dorky. A blog made in Bear Blog looks like a website from the 90s. It has every important feature you need though, and if you are technical it will suit you better than lykhari will.

Write.as

Built around one idea, you write, it publishes, nothing gets in the way. It's markdown-based, privacy-respecting by default, and if you ever want to leave, WriteFreely is the open source version you can run yourself.

Free for 1 blog with capped daily posts. Pro is $6/month billed yearly, or $9/month monthly, which adds a custom domain, newsletters, photo hosting, and up to 3 blogs.

micro.blog

Sits somewhere between a blog and a small, quieter version of a social feed. You can post short thoughts or full posts, and it plays well with the wider indie web through RSS and webmentions.

No free tier. Starts at $5/month for blog hosting on your own domain. Premium is $10/month for up to 5 blogs and newsletters.

Ghost

Ghost is a good platform. It has good SEO features and the writing experience is genuinely good. Its value lies in having multiple people working on the same blog, customizations, and third-party integrations. It supports newsletters, memberships, and paid subscriptions.

But it is built for publication houses and media businesses, not for independent writers. Now they talk about media publications and magazines almost exclusively. Individuals can use it but they are not first-class citizens.

There is no free hosted tier. Ghost(Pro) starts at $18/month for Starter and $29/month for Publisher, billed annually. That is $216 a year before you have written a single post, and most of what you are paying for is staff accounts, memberships, and integrations that one person starting a blog will never touch. It is needlessly expensive for an individual. Self-hosting the open source software is free if you run your own server, which is its own kind of work.

As a beginner you probably don't know yet whether you are going to keep blogging. If you decide to pause, you still bear the monthly cost to keep the blog up. If you stop paying, your blog goes with it.

Individuals are first class citizens here

A lot of platforms start small and look great for individuals. Ghost started that way. It was great in the start. Hit all the right nerves for solo publishers but eventually they started targeting businesses.

I remember how simple and beautiful Ghost was in the start but then they didn't niche down. They went for expansion and lost it.

Expansion is good for economy and business. Not so much for users. At lykhari I made a deliberate decision to not go for commercial success but to serve the needs of a writer. Commercial success is only a side effect.

I built lykhari after being fed up of platforms that made businesses their first-class citizen. They do so because the big money is in serving businesses.

I am here crafting a future of blogging for individuals, catering to individual needs. Solo publishers, solo writers, indie writers, journal writers, personal bloggers, authors, essayists, and the likes.

Businesses can use it but they are not the first class citizens here. I have written an explicit disclaimer that lykhari is not for businesses.

Medium and Substack are neither for individuals nor businesses. Customers are second grade citizens there. For Medium and Substack the first class citizens are investors. Choose a platform that is funded by customers, not investors.

What it costs

It is built with price sensitivity as an important aspect. What is the price you may ask? It is free to get started.

For free you get

  • A beautiful blog out of the box
  • A beautiful markdown editor
  • A free .lykhari.com domain to host
  • World class search engine optimization
  • Pages and category pages
  • Image uploads
  • An RSS feed at yourblog.com/rss.xml
  • Scheduled posts

For $5/mo or $50/year you get

  • Everything in the free plan
  • Custom domain
  • Email newsletter and subscriptions
  • Comments
  • API access
  • Inspiration feed
  • Beautiful themes

The yearly plan works out 17% cheaper than paying monthly.

Our inspiration feed gives you random excerpts from your writing that you can share on social media to market your blog. We do it for you so you can spend more time writing.

API access lets you create, update, and read posts from outside the dashboard. Scripts, cron jobs, or an AI you're already talking to. The api docs have the details.

What it doesn't have

  • Business and teams support

Lykhari is built for individuals who are fond of writing and words. We made the platform simple by stripping away the noise.

Simple is not minimal

A simple blogging platform has to be intuitive. It should be easy to get started and stay that way for 100s of years.

A simple blogging platform has to be beginner friendly.

What do we lose by this? Power users maybe. A writer who became larger than us so much so that they are not a writer anymore. They become a team of marketeers, SEO specialists, designers, ghost writers, and editors. That is the tradeoff.

Simple is not minimal. Minimalism for the sake of it often creates more complexity. Even though lykhari is a minimal blogging platform right now, we are after simplicity, not minimalism.

A bit about me

I am Kashif. I have been writing on and off for more than a decade. I write essays, random stuff, do journalling, share fictional short stories, poetry, and so on. I am a programmer too and have been at it for a decade.

I started writing with Blogger, then switched to WordPress and then to Ghost. I ran a Blogger blog for 7 years before moving to more open platforms. Being in software engineering I have watched the ups and downs of Blogger, Medium, Typepad and the rest fairly closely. Typepad shutting down is the most recent one, and I wrote about where to go after that.

Blogger had a very limited, archaic set of features. The platform never evolved. WordPress is a bloated mess and you can't get many things right easily. I loved Ghost the most. It came with a $11/month price tag. Then Ghost started targeting media publications more than solo writers.

Given my 10 years of software development, I decided to build a platform for solo, independent writers. Casual and pros. Something open. Something lean. Something well thought out. Especially to build a business that listens to customers and not investors.

I made lykhari all by myself. No investment was taken, unlike Substack which works for hyper-growth and investors because they have raised more than 80 million. I do not plan to have any stakeholders except customers and myself. My most important stake is that my own blog runs on this platform too. Here it is: yakashif.com. I am my own software's power user.

If you want a rundown of the wider field, this blogpost does a good job, and I keep my own running list in the ultimate list of all the blogging platforms. The faqs answer most of what people ask me.

If I have to pick one

Out of Substack, Medium, and lykhari, I suggest lykhari. Two reasons. One is that I made the platform. The other is everything above about closed platforms and who they actually answer to.

If you are casual and write sparingly you can start a free personal blog.

If you are a pro, you get to build an audience, send emails, an AI-generated marketing feed, off-the-shelf SEO, and very soon an ability to monetize your audience.

If you do try lykhari, I can personally help you through onboarding if needed. I can listen to your feature requests. I can import your content from other platforms. You can find me on Twitter (now X). Email me at kashif at lykhari [dot] com.

We can grow this thing together and I assure you it covers 95% of regular blogging needs for a price no other platform offers.

You can own a space on the internet in the next 1 minute. Go to https://lykhari.com and get started.