March 9, 2018
Everybody has social networks apps, probably more than one. But not a lot of people own websites.
The assumption is building an website is hard and probably requires some cost. Even Wordpress famous 5 minutes installation doesn't cut it.
Actually it is easy, and requires no money, or very little depending on your needs.
This formula is generally true for many use cases:
Website = Hosting + Domain + Static Content
GitHub hosting is free. If you don't know Git. Just follow instructions on GitHub. They made everything simple and clear.
Netlify also has free personal plan. It is not just hosting. You may end up have Netlify for everything.
Of course there are Amazon S3 and alike.
Domain registration is the part that needs some money. Price is different per providers. I use Amazon AWS. As of today, $12 for a '.com' domain for one year.
On the other hand, to get a domain like 'your_name.github.io' or 'your_name.netlify.com' is free. So this is really depend on how personalized do you want.
People are afraid of learning HTML/CSS/Javascript.
But you don't have to. Just learn Markdown, the guide is only one page. It is easier than MS Word.
There are tools to convert your content to HTML.
Jekyll is built for transforming your plain text into static websites and blogs.
Hugo is another popular choice.
If you know VueJs, try NUXT.
If you know React, try Docusaurus or Dochameleon. You still just write Markdown for content, but have the chance to extend with ReactJs.
There are so many, these are only the ones I have experience or interested in.
To make your site secure require some learning and maybe some money. However for most personal websites for just sharing contents. This may not be necessary.
Social networks are boring. Have an internet handle for your personalities. The cost is less than one day of time, and zero amount of money.