This is exactly what we're trying to build with https://github.com/accretional/statue - you can email me or hit me up on Linkedin to get early access to our free static site hosting (which our new site for the project at https://statue.dev runs on, and which will Soon™ have a public-facing product doing exactly what you just asked for)

Basically you'll be able to edit the markdown for your site in a souped up version of our lightly reskinned vscode IDE at https://brilliant.mplode.dev and instantly publish/preview the changes in the same browser tab in a pane. Brilliant comes with a full Linux environment running in a container on our cloud platform, and building a Statue static site is already a one-command operation. The little UI we're working on let's nontechnical people skip that and just edit files and click buttons to make changes and publish it, though.

Here's a one-liner that will get you an entire static site with content (not the landing page yet, though) you can edit via markdown:

yes | npx sv create . --template minimal --types ts --no-add-ons --install npm && npm install statue-ssg && npx statue init && npm install && npm run dev

This isn't exactly the point. He said easy to use. Yours requires developer skills which is not what he is looking for.

Squarespace is like $20/mo for a basic site promoting your Brick and Mortar business. That includes domain, hosting, and a template/CMS. It's not that pricey.

It's not pricey if you are a serious business making good money. It's a huge price if you are say a part time artist just wanting somewhere to store a price list, gallery and contact form.

I'm just surprised there is nothing that fills the gap between github pages and a full hosted solution with a ton of junk you don't need. All it really needs is maybe a locally running app that can handle generating the static pages and uploading them for you.

Macs used to come with iWeb. https://www.apple.com/welcomescreen/ilife/iweb-3/

These days you can buy paid software to do this:

- $110 https://blocsapp.com

- $90 https://realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver-classic/

- $80 https://sitely.app

- $30 https://bootstrapstudio.io

- $0 https://www.silex.me

- $0 https://wordpress.org/plugins/simply-static/

- $0 until recently, https://web.archive.org/web/20240410200646/https://grapesjs....

RapidWeaver Classic calls itself a subscription and sets up autopay, but you can immediately cancel and keep that version forever, like Jetbrains.

iWeb was an utter monstrosity. Worse than MS Front Page, which I didn't think was possible.

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.

Yeah, with Statue the barrier is literally just running one terminal command. And funny you mention the LLM part, we're actually working on integrating that directly into the workflow so you won't even need to copy-paste between tools. Check it out: https://statue.dev/

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.

If you can't afford $20 per month, you are not in business.

nope, been there as an entrepreneur where you have NO available funds when the Squarespace renewal hits.

It's a lot.

Let's be honest -- at that point you don't have a business anymore and aren't an "entrepreneur".

Let's be more honest: if the power is on, the sheriff isn't locking your doors, but customers can't reach your web presence, the problem isn't really "the entrepreneur".

A webapp or gui WYSIWYG static generator with basic git support abstracted away would go far for many. Just let it push to some private repo which cloudflare pages or similar would deploy off of.

It really feels like the only part of a non-static site most want is an editor. I absolutely loathe the matter but I do see why some restaurants only maintain a facebook page for their online presence.

This is what Netlify does. Hook up a private repo and deploy. Make a commit and it auto builds and you have a CI/CD pipeline. This is what I build all of my static sites with. You can do almost any JS framework like React, Angular, Vue, etc.

Netlify does way more than this, but it makes hosting static stuff super easy.

https://www.netlify.com/

Not exactly what you’re asking for, but this is nonetheless an interesting approach: https://getpublii.com/

Some don't even bother, and the only thing they update (when they remember about it) is their business hours on Google Maps.

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'm just surprised we haven't seem some app that can act like a wordpress admin page but generating a static output you can host for free or very cheap somewhere.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44391535

(I'm not affiliated with it)

Hey, we're actually building something very close to this! We have a template system where you can style everything with Tailwind (already included) or add other UI packages. You can host both frontend and backend for free using Cloudflare D1 and similar options. We're also working on a pretty elegant solution for the backend side of things. Here's a working example built with our project: https://yc-game.pages.dev/leaderboard Check it out at https://statue.dev/ — if you're interested, you can follow the project on GitHub or find us on X: @semihpvlat (me) and @FredAccretional (CEO).

I’m building something like this…

NextJS + Git + Vercel.

how about something like feather.so? publish a website / blog from your Notion...

haven't used it, but looks like a great idea!

That’s what I’ve been working on for the last few years: https://palacms.com (MIT) Not ready to announce the V3 RC yet (need to fill out the starter sites) but it’s working well if you wanna give it a spin - runs & deploys on Railway’s free tier.

Have you looked at micro.blog? Plans start at $1 per month.

Google Sites exists. Buy a domain, point it at a free Google site. So easy a religion major can make a site that looks pretty decent (ha ha, only serious; I thought he'd used Wordpress at first) for just the cost of domain registration.

Frontmatter CMS is a VSCodium plugin that works as a somewhat user-friendly CMS for the likes of Hugo. https://frontmatter.codes/

I set it up for my brother to run his static blog, and it's quite good if you like that kind of thing. There are some quirks where it gets confused if you rename mycoolarticle.md, so I still prefer using notepad++ and git and CLI for mine.

There are at least a few CMS editors for static sites intended for non-technical/less-technical users. They often still require someone technical to setup (config files and OAuth connections to GitHub, for example) but then provide an experience somewhat like what one would expect from the WordPress Admin Page.

Two examples I've briefly worked with:

Decap CMS (formerly Netlify CMS): https://decapcms.org/

Lume CMS: https://lume.land/cms/

I've updated, this now has Zero Runtime js, Not a single line of js runs when this page loads in your browser.