What should I use to make a website?

I've been trying to collect some resources for website-curious friends.

Preamble

A few months ago, I posted an invitation and offer to my Instagram story (full text below).

have u always wanted ur own website?

hey friends! if you have been wanting to set up your own website but don't know where to start or want an accountability buddy to help see you through - let me know!

i don't have all the answers but i really want people to have a beautiful independent space of their own, away from increasingly hostile big tech platforms. let me know <3

you don't have to be a creator to have a website! some potential reasons you could have a website:

• to let people know where to find you
• to blog and write all your serious and silly thoughts
• to share your favourite things (movies, music, videos, pictures, links, wikipedia articles, animal facts)
• to store things you don't want to forget (resolutions, goals, ideas)
• to display your resume (if you want to go profesh)
• just because you can!! who says two or three companies have to own your soul on this big and beautiful internet of ours!!

I got lots of messages from friends about this! People had a range of different interests and intentions and capacity, so it was an interesting challenge to find tools that matched what people were looking for. Among the messages, I did hear people resonating with feeling boxed in by big tech platforms, and thinking fondly of the more freeform, independent, DIY spirit of the older web.

But yes, okay! We're all excited about websites! How do you actually make one? What thing do you use?

Deciding where to start

Some questions to consider:

• What do you want to put on the website? Are you interested in writing/blogging, or is it more of a portfolio, an academic/professional resume, or just a landing page to put contact information and links?
• Are you interested in exploring the fun, funky, weird space of the indie web, or are you wanting a website for more practical reasons?
• Will it be more personal, professional, or a mix of both?
• Are you looking for more of a polished or handmade feeling?
• Are you showcasing a lot of image/video/media assets?
• How much are you interested in getting into the code, or do you just want something more ready-to-go?

With those questions in mind, here are some tools, platforms, and services I've recommended, with informal, scribble-y notes that I wrote when I was texting people. (I might clean this up later.)

Recommendations

For portfolios and landing pages

• Framer or Webflow — more full-featured visual editor — you can drop text and images and other content in here super easily and have it look pretty nice by default
• Cargo — great for portfolios, nice and polished
• Carrd — has some longer landing page templates, beyond the more common link pages that people often have
• Blot perhaps? love the philosophy, though it is a paid product

For handmade/personal websites and the indie web spirit

• mmm.page — freeform, collage-y, playful, fun, visual editor
• Neocities — revival of old-school Geocities community, emphasis on making a personal website, requires coding but is cute and friendly about it
  • also Zonelets — a little package of files to do easy blogging on Neocities
• Tumblr — where it all started <3

For experimentation

• Glitch — lots of little web experiments, with templates for creating a links page or a starter website; you can edit the code and see previews quickly
• Netlify and YAY.BOO! — if you have HTML/CSS/JS files, you can drop them here and get a website with a URL on the internet!
• for something from scratch… even something that's just HTML templates like HTML5 UP? you could pick a basic template and edit the content for a simple landing page type website (taken from an academic's website)

For blogging

• Pika — simple blogging platform; you can also have other pages that aren’t blog posts
  • Pricing: free tier or $6/month ($60/year)
• Bear — looks even simpler
  • Pricing: is it free? I think it's free?
• Kirby — a CMS (content management system) that requires a lot less fiddling, for people who mostly want to focus on writing or blogging
  • Pricing: $115 per site
• lmno.lol — looks like a super quick and easy-to-use platform for posting blogs — just drag-and-drop a Markdown file in
  • Pricing: $1.50/month

For more custom websites

• Eleventy — have been hesitant to recommend this because it's more development-heavy (read: spending more time in the terminal) than other options, but there is a very active community that's very welcoming to beginners and there are many templates that let you get started on a blog or website easily

Other lists

I know similar lists like this one elsewhere, so I'll try to find them (again) and continue adding links to tools and lists.

• List of Blog Platforms by Manuel Moreale

Update log

• 2025-01-24: added Cargo and HTML5 UP
• 2025-02-02: added Blot
• 2025-04-07: added Eleventy, Kirby, Webflow
• 2025-04-24: added lmno.lol, added some pricing points