From Jekyll to WordPress

I created this blog in 2015, I wanted to start blogging in English my random thoughts and rants.

My main photography blog is written in Spanish. Quicoto Blog started in 2007 and it was my with Blogger and quickly migrated to WordPress. I haven’t looked back ever since.

Hello Jekyll 👋

Since I am a web developer I wanted to try a static site generator. For the load speed, customization, no database. You know just HTML’s being served. I chose Jekyll and I was happy to blog using it.

The workflow for creating a new post went like this:

1. Have the Github repo in my machine up to date
2. Create a new markdown file adding the url slug, the date and the other meta fields.
3. Write the post.
4. Create a folder in the assets folder for that post.
5. Prepare the image and put it in that folder.
6. Push all the changes to the Github repository
7. Log in via SSH to my VPS 
8. Trigger the Jekyll build script.

Once I got used to it, it wasn’t too bad. Well, not too bad if you don’t have to do it daily. Lately I have been blogging more and more here and the workflow started to bother me.

I took the decision to move to WordPress to eliminate my pain points. I think the workflow could’ve been improved with some server scripting to eliminate some steps. I wasn’t able to do it when I tried.

I know what you’re going to say, I’ve introduced a database, possible security issues if I don’t update regularly and performance bottlenecks to my site.

What have I gained with WordPress?

• What You See Is What You Get editor.  Specifically I’m blogging using the Gutenberg editor, the dreaded new approach to create content in WordPress (spoiler alert: it is not as bad as they say).
• Instant publish with 1 click.
• Easy to manage assets, drag and drop.
• Site-wide search built in.

The workflow has become:

1. Log in to the dashboard.
2. Write the blog post.
3. Add a images.
4. Hit publish.

In my opinion, much faster and convenient than what I had before.

What platform do you blog with?

Ricard