Platform Investigation: Eleventy vs. Micro.blog vs. Weblog.lol

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 17:43:12 -0400

I have been interested in sharing more online, and decided to finally do a true deep-dive into the options out there to host a blog.

Background and Evaluation

I have been a happy Micro.blog subscriber but never really used it to the fullest for “blogging”. I am not a big writer by any means, but enjoy sharing interesting things I come across. Maybe it’s a link to an article, or an attempt to share a take on the latest tech thing in my life.

This eventually led me to evaluate the services in my life and how I use them. Previously I had my “homepage” which was just a link to this blog hosted on Micro.blog. I decided I wanted to change that up, and found that “hunsanger.blog” was available, and decided to move my blog content to that dedicated site, while moving my new “webpage” (omg.lol terminology) to be my home-base for my socials at hunsanger.com.

After seeing praises sung by Robb Knight, I decided to check out Eleventy which honestly I came very close to using. I liked that I could have a clean Obsidian → GitHub → Netlify workflow that would allow me to do most of my blogging in my current note-taking application of choice. The customization options were limitless, and there was certainly a level of freedom about it that did call to me. The #1 feature I loved was the ability to locally view and tweak my theme and then push changes to GitHub.

I also evaluated Weblog.lol (service offered through my omg.lol subscription) and it really is a good balance of functionality and convenience all while natively supporting markdown. I found the handling of templates to be a bit fiddly for my taste and customization was especially tricky but I’m anxiously going to check out Neato offered by Neatnik (who is behind omg.lol) when it is released.

How I landed on Micro.blog

Responsive developer (I emailed Manton Reece about an issue I ran into with my theme and received multiple emails the same day answering my question)
It jives with how I want to use this space, which is as a collaborative easy to use multi-platformed hub of content. For example, Manton was quick to add BlueSky and Mastodon posting and integration with Micro.blog which I already am using and enjoying.
Great linkblogging support. Here is a great rundown on link-blogging from Manton that I came across when figuring out how to set this up with Micro.blog Linkblogging · Indie Microblogging
- Solid input support
  - Does it have an app? Yes
  - Does it work with Drafts? Yes
  - Does it work with MarsEdit? Yes
  - Does it support Markdown natively for posts? Yes

Plans

I want to post more, and specifically like the idea of doing more linkblogging in my admittedly limited free-time. I have four kids to entertain when I’m not working, and squeezing in time to write lengthy blog-posts just are not in the cards. Linkblogging with quick-takes feels doable.
I’ll re-evaluate the long-term blog platform when Neato comes out. I do like the idea of having things even more customizable (like Eleventy) and I would say that is not off the table by any means.

For fun here are some blog screenshots I played around with during my evaluation period.

micro.blog on Chris Hunsanger

Platform Investigation: Eleventy vs. Micro.blog vs. Weblog.lol

Background and Evaluation

How I landed on Micro.blog

Plans

Eleventy

Weblog.lol