Best alternative to Wordpress for static sites?

[eddowding]

Looking for easy to edit, visually appealing, and search-engine friendly.

To replace small sites like this which I'm tired of updating: https://southafricabeachhouse.com/

I guess my options are Ghost or Grav. But any clear winners or prefs?

[threetrees3]

Ghost and Grav are still kind of CMSes which I wouldn't consider static..

Static site generators are aplenty. I prefer Hugo but here's a list

[eddowding]

Thanks! I was especially thinking about those on cloudron.

[RazielKanos]

You could use Brizy cloud as well. You build your website in a modern editor, but they offer to expert to any server location you want as static HTML, and it's free if you don't need any fancy blocks as well. I am using it myself:

https://www.brizy.io/cloud

[jfrere]

I use https://getpublii.com, then I upload the content on surfer.

Publii has an option to import Wordpress websites (content only, not the theme or template).

[timconsidine]

Publii is good if you don’t mind installing it locally and pushing the content to a Surfer app.

Or you could install Hugo in Surfer or LAMP and publish the site to correct location. Or indeed locally install Hugo Jekyll 11ty etc and push published site to a Surfer app.

[jfrere]

To work with Publii on more than one computer, you can install a Nextcloud instance on Cloudron, then use a Nextcloud drive to store Publii files.

[timconsidine]

@jfrere true
Have set it up for someone like this but using iCloud. Have also done it using Seafile.
But always advise that the Publii is shutdown when not in use, to avoid files being in open state on 2 devices.

[jfrere]

@timconsidine The way Publii works with a remote drive is intended for one person working from multiple locations, rather than for multiple people collaborating on the same website.

[JOduMonT]

I used Publii with Google Drive it was fine
I also tried with GitHub, worked too

I found the best "Host" for Publii is to use it GitHub and Cloudflare Page as they will be at the Edge.

Developper's of Publii specifically target WordPress user who are looking for a static alternative.

[JOduMonT]

other alternative is to keep WordPress as backend and use something like https://vercel.com/templates/next.js/isr-blog-nextjs-wordpress for the front end.

[JOduMonT]

another alternative is to use Notion and with NextJS
like whith this: https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/nextjs-notion-starter-kit
it work well, but not entirely open source (Notion)
but possible to automate with n8n which is sadly not possible for Publii

[LoudLemur]

Anytype?
https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/9533/anytype-finally-released-for-public-beta/28

[timconsidine]

@jfrere yes, i know - that's what I do

[JOduMonT]

@LoudLemur I love the idea of AnyType
But How do you use it as a CMS like it is possible with Notion ?
They say Publishing Web is a Requested Feature, not yet done.

• https://doc.anytype.io/anytype-docs/miscellaneous/feature-list-by-platform#highly-requested-features
  

[JOduMonT]

Currently; I use Obsidian with Hugo
it is not the best but it get the job done.
I prefered it to all other solution because I could integrate GenAI in it.

[LoudLemur]

@JOduMonT Obsidian looks nice. I haven't been using AnyType very much and can't really comment.

You might like to look at some of these, for example, have you tried Astro?

• Astro: https://astro.build/blog/introducing-astro/
• VuePress: https://vuepress.vuejs.org/
• Gridsome: https://gridsome.org/
• Eleventy: https://www.11ty.dev/
• NuxtJS (Static): https://www.nuxtjs.cn/blog/going-full-static

While we are talking about static sites, lets not forget the Gemini Protocol:

• https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/5827/molly-brown-gemini-project-on-cloudron?_=1718992981219

[threetrees3]

Publii looks interesting. For the people that use Publii, are there more themes than what's available on their own Marketplace?

[jrl-abstract27]

@eddowding, ghost is really good for everyday blogs and website. On top they are working on integrating the activitypub protocol to it, meaning that your website could contribute to a social network open and decentralize.
More infos - > https://activitypub.ghost.org/
or here about activitypub -> https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/20/23689570/activitypub-protocol-standard-social-network

[eddowding]

@jrl-abstract27 I'd be happy & confident with Ghost. I'd like it to just do Pages and not Posts, so that the home page is just another page.
Apparently there are themes which have this as a feature but I can't find one yet, and I don't really want to go fussing about with Routes etc.
I just found the instructions to create a home.hbs and so have copied that and will tinker with the index a bit. Still weird that it's not a main option but so it goes. Thank you for the prompt to not be so lazy