The Ultimate [Free] Jamstack
Introduction
As an aspiring freelance writer, and newly published author (Achieving DevOps), I had a real need to set up a writing portfolio to showcase my work. I knew I needed a place to host my website and a means by which to create it. There were a few criteria that my tech stack had to meet to satisfy my [picky] needs.
- All tools and services must be free
- To have the ability to write content in Markdown
- Lightweight, fast, and server-less
- Easy to use
After a bit of “light googling”, I stumbled upon GitHub Pages for my hosting solution. I’m not sure how after 10 years on GitHub I have just now found out about this service. Nonetheless, it sounded perfect for my needs. The concept was simple, all one had to do was to deploy their static website pages to a [very specifically named] GitHub repository, and your site is live. Easy peasy.
The second part I had to figure out was how to generate those pesky web files. I have a background in software development, but web development not so much. I simply didn’t have the time to handwrite HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and whatever else the kids use these days. I simply wanted to write in Markdown. This led me down the path of exploring static site generators. After a bit of research, it seemed that…
