Moved Blog to a Static Site Using Hugo and GitHub Pages

May 31, 2020 2-minute read

Hugo • GitHub

It has been a while since I wrote something here. I was using a Digital Ocean droplet to run this blog using self-hosted version of Wordpress. Overall, it was good experience but there are issues with Wordpress installs. While it allows greater levels of customization, when all you need is just sharing your ideas, it becomes rather heavy. Also, the recent vulnerabilities made me think about it again. While I was having this thought process, I came across a few sites hosted on GitHub pages using Jekyll and simple static pages. I really wanted to move but moving from Wordpress to static site isn’t an easy option. There are Wordpress plugins available to export to markdown format and then host the same on GitHub pages. This is done using Hugo. While, on paper, it looks very easy job, it is actually not. The exported markdown files won’t be compatible with your selected Hugo theme. As I was wondering about this whole process, Chen came to the rescue and gave me a head start. After reviewing what he sent and doing some more research, I decided to build the site from scratch.

So, welcome to the new home. In the process of migrating to Hugo+GitHub Pages, I decided to drop some old content from the blog and export what was most visited through last few years. I have moved three most important series of articles I wrote here.

I have archived most of the other content and will try to bring it in slowly when I get some free time. Believe me. It is a lot of work bringing in old content into the markdown format. The images need to be moved, links need to be corrected, and code needs to be formatted again based on what type of syntax highlighter you were using.

Anyway, I just fell in love with this new look and the way it makes my life easy. I have been writing in markdown for a while and I feel so comfortable doing it. I hope this move helps me write more and share my thoughts.

I am also in the process of moving PowerShell Magazine to a static site but that is much more complex than a simple blog like mine. But, yes, I certainly want to make it easy for our contributing authors.

Are you using a static site as well? What is your experience?

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