Where Should I Blog? A Field Guide from Corporate Platforms to the IndieWeb

When I assigned blog posts for HT 930: Digital Humanities at United Lutheran Seminary, the first question was not"what should I write?"but "where do I put it?" This made me realize that choosing a blog platform in 2026 is really overhwelming and there is a deep desire for ease of use, simplicity of url, and a community to join.

Here is the field guide I have built learning from my students, their needs, and working with them to navigate the blogging landscape. Digital humanities people should care about this more than most, because a blog is not only a place to write. It is a small archive and it needs to be presistent and durable.

What every blog needs #

Before you pick a platform, check it against this list. The first thing you should really have a do is a domain of ones own.

1. A stable address. Ideally a domain you own. A subdomain like you.example.com is fine to start, but you do not control it.
2. Permalinks. Every post should have one address that does not change.
3. An RSS or Atom feed. This is how readers follow you without an algorithm deciding whether they get to.
4. An export button. If you cannot leave with your posts, you do not own them.
5. An About page.
6. A license. Creative Commons is a good default for scholarly work.
7. Plain text, preferably Markdown. Markdown files will outlive every company on this list.

The IndieWeb community has a name for the habit that ties this together: POSSE, or Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. You post the original on your site, then share links or copies on social media. The canonical copy stays with you.

The corporate platforms #

These are easy, free to start, and owned by someone else. That is the trade.

WordPress.com. Not the same thing as the free WordPress software. The WordPress.com free plan gives you a yoursite.wordpress.com address and 1 GB of storage, displays WordPress.com ads to your visitors, and does not include a custom domain or plugins.

Tumblr. Tumblr is wonderful for fandom, art, and reblogs, and less wonderful as a citable archive. Automattic, which owns it, has also announced plans to move Tumblr's back end onto WordPress, which tells you something about how much the ground under a platform can shift.

Wix. Wix is a drag-and-drop website builder that also does blogs. The Wix free plan gives you 500 MB of storage, puts you on a Wix subdomain, and adds Wix-branded ads. It is great for a bakery. It is less great for a research log you hope to cite in 2035.

Blogspot (Blogger). The grandparent of the bunch. Google acquired Blogger in 2003 and has required a Google account to create blogs since 2007. Blogger still works and still costs nothing. It also lives at the mercy of a company famous for retiring products.

Medium. Medium is pleasant to read and has a built-in audience. It also moved to a subscription model in 2017 and introduced a metered paywall and Partner Program. For scholars, a paywall in front of your public writing works against the whole point of public writing.

The independent options #

These range from "free and friendly" to "free if you know thanks to Brennan."

Knowledge Commons (hcommons.org). This is the network formerly called Humanities Commons. It became Knowledge Commons on May 20, 2024 and still lives at hcommons.org. You get a scholarly profile, a WordPress site, a repository called KCWorks, and a Mastodon server at hcommons.social. For HT 930 students, this is my first recommendation. It is built by academics and is not trying to sell you anything.

Bear Blog. Bear Blog is tiny, fast, and proud of it. The free tier is real. The upgrade costs $6 per month, $49 per year, or $189 once and adds custom domains, media uploads, and analytics.

Smol.pub. Smol.pub calls itself "a tiny blogging service" for the small net. Your posts appear on the web, on Gemini, and on Gopher. It offers custom CSS, custom domains, and post export, with no JavaScript, ads, or tracking.

Lemma.pub. Lemma publishes on the AT Protocol, the open network behind Bluesky, so Bluesky replies can work as comments. I use it for my book review blog, and I wrote a full review of Lemma.pub if you want the details.

WriteFreely. WriteFreely is open-source, minimalist, and federated through ActivityPub, so people on Mastodon can follow your blog directly. It powers Write.as and is light enough to run on a Raspberry Pi.

folk.zone. folk.zone is an IndieWeb commons run by one person, my friend Brennan Kenneth Brown, on real hardware in Treaty 7 territory in Calgary. Its WriteFreely instance is invite-only. Email [email protected] and be nice.

omg.lol. For $20 a year you get a web address, a profile page, email forwarding, a status log, and a pastebin. Its weblog.lol service supports Markdown and optional Git-based publishing. I liked status.lol enough to wire it into my own site.

Neocities. Neocities is the spiritual heir of GeoCities, with 1 GB of storage and 200 GB of bandwidth on the free plan. A $5 monthly supporter plan adds space and custom domains. It is the best place on the internet to make a website that looks like 1999 on purpose.

So which one? #

If you are interested in Digital Humanites and want the shortest path, start on Knowledge Commons. If you want to write and never think about servers, try Bear Blog or WriteFreely. If you want to learn how the web works, go to Neocities and write some HTML by hand. If you want a web address that makes people smile, get an omg.lol.

Whatever you pick, run it through the checklist. Digital humanities is partly the study of what survives, so give your own writing a fighting chance.

In the next post in this series I will walk through static site generators, which is the moment many of us stop renting and start building. Pick a platform this week, write a short About page, and send me the link. I would love to read it.