New Version of My Website!
New Version of My Website!
Welcome to the brand-new version of my website!
I had been working on this redesign for several months, driven by a desire to reduce costs and simplify everything.
From WordPress to Wix, then to a Static Site
I’ve always been a big fan of WordPress, but over time, I got tired of the endless updates: WordPress itself, plugins, PHP, the database… In short, too much maintenance for a simple blog!
Hoping to free myself from these technical constraints, I migrated my site to Wix. Their promise of simplicity and easy management was tempting, and honestly, the service was decent, although sometimes limiting.
Then came the first price increase. Nothing dramatic, so I continued with them… Until recently, when I had to reevaluate my budget and cut down on overly expensive subscriptions.
I decided to redevelop my site, this time opting for a lighter and more cost-effective approach: a static website generated with the Hugo framework! I took an existing theme and started the work of customization and migration.
A (Very) Laborious Migration…
The migration took months, particularly to redesign the layout and manually transfer my articles one by one. Wix offers absolutely NO export tool—a real golden cage! I tried using their API, but retrieving the full content of my articles was impossible. I was stuck…
Then, on January 11, 2025, I received this email:
“Changes to Your Client’s Wix Premium Plan and Its Pricing”
+€220.53?!? That’s nearly double my current rate (€298.35).
That was the last straw. I sped up the migration, and this weekend, I officially switched my site! 🎉 You’re now reading the first article on this new version: a static, ultra-fast website with an ultra-low carbon footprint (article on this topic coming soon)!
A Static Site: Freedom and Lower Costs
Goodbye Wix and its excessive pricing! With a static site, I can host it wherever I want, for a fraction of the cost. Several free options exist for hosting a static website:
- Vercel
- Netlify (Beware of the 2024 scandal and the $100k bill due to a DDoS!)
- GitHub Pages
- Cloudflare Pages
I chose Cloudflare Pages for several reasons:
- The free plan meets my needs
- Built-in DDoS protection
- Unlimited bandwidth (for now?)
A Simple and Efficient Workflow
With Hugo, managing articles is a delight. I write everything in Markdown, and during the build process, Hugo generates the static files.
To deploy my site, I set up a CI/CD pipeline:
- I write my article in Markdown
- I commit and push to my GitHub repo
- Cloudflare Pages detects the change, builds, and deploys the site
🚀 My site updates instantly, with no downtime, and I don’t have to lift a finger after committing! This is simply an application of DevOps principles. 🤩
In short, a new chapter begins for my website. I hope you enjoy this new version! 😎
