Is there an open source blogging platform like Medium or Substack I could publish to without self-hosting? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 month ago by CaptainStack@lemmy.ml to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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Hey Lemmy - I'm trying to migrate my life as much as possible into open source tech and platforms. Fediverse networks like Mastodon and Pixelfed have provided good enough alternatives to their counterparts in Twitter and Instagram.

Is there such an equivalent for bloggers? I'm hoping to find a platform which is open source and supports self hosting but one that also provides a first-party instance that folks like me can make an account on and start publishing.

Effectively I'm looking for something that would provide a user experience similar to Medium or Substack but which wouldn't lock me or the community into it. Something based on ActivityPub would be ideal.

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[-] wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 1 month ago

I self host ghost but they do offer a hosted version. It's open source as well. They're even working on activity pub integration!

[-] CaptainStack@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 month ago

A lot of folks recommending Ghost/WordPress I think are not understanding that a huge part of what I'm hoping to find is an active community of readers and writers that I may contribute to - I'm not looking to build a new destination site.

When you sign up on Medium.com you're effectively given a free blog, but the real value they offer is that when you publish people who are on Medium.com who have never heard of you or your blog are recommended to read your articles. Every writer and reader on the platform is contributing to building a bigger network which makes it more valuable to everyone on it.

[-] wholookshere@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

So two things

Activity pub is federation. So you'd be publishing to anywhere. Which as I said before, ghost is actively working on. They have a weekly mailer.

If your looking for an algorithm publishing centre, your going to find open source to be lacking. Generally speaking people who are looking for open source, don't want the algorithmic feeding that your describing.

[-] CaptainStack@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 month ago

It doesn't need to be algorithmic - like Lemmy and Mastodon and Pixelfed all let people follow, like, comment, up vote without algorithmically promoting content.