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Honestly, there are some easier ways out there now, although of course no solution is perfect.

For non-technical people I'd recommend the Hostinger Website Builder, Obsidian Quartz or Astro Starlight.

Although as a front-end dev I'd choose building a custom page with Astro, which has now become much easier though with good templates available + LLM assistance.

I wrote a comparison of less-technical ways to build a website here with more details: https://webdev.bryanhogan.com/start/ways-to-build/


I was going to recommend the same! Astro + Astro theme + an LLM will get you very far these days.

I used to be all in on Jekyll. Now all I use is Astro + Tailwind + Claude, and it’s magic. No need for a theme with this combination.

The barrier to create a website using Astro + a Template + telling an LLM like Gemini what you want is very low nowadays. So still, if you work with code some technical knowledge is required, but it will only get easier, probably.

There is very little chance a non developer would make it through that. The current options are Instagram/Facebook page which is free and easy. Or a website which is either expensive or requires you to be a developer.

What about tools like lovable/base44 etc?

I'm a developer (so I prefer Astro and all) but was thinking of the barrier of entry for creating new websites is very low now.


It's fascinating that people care very much about this when it's visual arts, but when it comes to code almost no one does.

E.g. the latest Anno game (117) received a lot of hate for using AI generated loading screen backgrounds, while I have never heard of a single person caring about code, which probably was heavily AI generated.


I've been very satisfied with creating a short AGENTS.md file with the project basics, and then also including references to where to find more information / context, like a /context folder that has markdown files such as app-description.md.

You just need: Plan -> Implement -> Test -> Repeat

Whether you are creating software, games or whatever, these iterations are foundational. How these steps look like in detail of course depends on the project itself.


I can highly recommend using YouTube through Firefox with extensions or ReVanced that try to fix these hostile and anti user decisions. Although I do sometimes wonder why I do spend so much time on a platform that hates me so much.

I can highly recommend Obsidian for long-term knowledge bases. Have been writing about using it well: https://bryanhogan.com/tags/obsidian

It's missing collaboration at the core, although it's possible to achieve this currnetly with third party solutions, or the next major update should also include it as it's the "multiplayer" update.


I work on one of the third party plugins enabling real-time collaboration in Obsidian called Relay [0].

We have a novel architecture where you can optionally register a self-hosted relay server with our control plane for complete privacy for all of your docs and attachments.

We know that people typically prefer to have a unified vault, so you can share individual folders with different groups of people within your vault.

Relay is free for markdown docs up to 3 users, and then we have a hobby plan which includes attachment storage (especially popular with D&D and TTRPG players), as well as per-seat plans for businesses and universities. There are a couple of cloud-only alternatives like peerdraft and screen garden as well.

[0] https://relay.md


I am using Obsidian with the markdown-oxide [0] language server in my favorite text editor. It works pretty well for link navigation and completion.

[0] https://oxide.md/


How do you manage the more Obsidian-y sync side? Do you have it open with no tabs, or something else going on?

Leaving obsidian open is a good option. Also just syncing with github.

Maybe Devin can make some GH sync utils for oxide


Fantastic tool.

What do you think about Logseq? I tend to prefer native outliners and Obsidian just doesnt scratch that itch for me as well as drag and dropping and swipe indenting

I also use Logseq for quick daily notes, since I like that it has the infinite vertical view & I want these notes open in a different program. But it has some quirks and tells that make it feel like lower quality software compared to Obsidian, e.g. its startup time is horribly slow.

I do find what I would call the suspension/handling in car terms is a little less zippy but it nails everything else out of the park, I'll have to adjust. Tye upside is there is a ton of stuff that is technically customizable I just havent waded into that yet

Obsidian is nothing less than a complete IDE for text.

I've written a full length novel in Obsidian and it's fantastic for writing anything.

I prefer writing Markdown for notes, e.g. in Obsidian, I think it fits very there. Because now you can easily take your notes to most other note-taking programs, and letting AI interact with these files also works great.

If I needed more context / am writing a paper I'd choose something like Typst, but usually I don't need the additional overhead.

(Btw: The author has a great name!)


Something cool I noticed while living in South Korea is that Naver Blog is very popular and a large amount of people use it, either writing content or looking up content for recommendations, e.g. where to go when travelling.


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