Best Tech Stack for Building a Blog as a Solo Developer

I've built four blogs over the past few years. The first one was a WordPress disaster. Slow, bloated, and constantly needing plugin updates. The one you're reading right now? It's Astro. It loads in under a second, costs me nothing to host, and I haven't touched the infrastructure in months.

If you're a developer building a blog, you have a massive advantage. You don't need WordPress. You can build something faster, cheaper, and completely under your control. Here's the stack I'd use.

The Recommended Stack

Why This Stack Works for Solo Developers

A blog is the simplest thing you can build. Don't overcomplicate it. The best blog stack has zero runtime dependencies, zero database maintenance, and zero server costs. Astro with Markdown gives you exactly that.

I used to run a blog on Ghost, which was nice but required a server ($5-12/month) and database management. Before that, WordPress, which needed constant updates and security patches. Both were overkill for what is fundamentally a collection of text files.

Static site generators changed everything for developer blogs. You write in Markdown, the build step generates HTML, and a CDN serves it globally. No servers. No databases. No security vulnerabilities. Just fast web pages.

Frontend: Astro

Astro was built specifically for content-heavy sites. By default, it ships zero JavaScript to the browser. Your blog posts are pure HTML and CSS, which means perfect Lighthouse scores and pages that load before your reader can blink.

But here's what makes Astro special. When you DO need interactivity (a search bar, a newsletter signup form, an interactive demo), you can drop in React, Svelte, or Vue components. They only load JavaScript for that specific component, not the whole page.

This blog runs on Astro. I get 100/100 Lighthouse scores across the board. My hosting bill is literally $0. And writing a new post takes five minutes because I just create a Markdown file.

Alternatives. Hugo if you want the fastest possible build times (it's Go-based and builds thousands of pages in seconds). 11ty if you want maximum flexibility with minimal opinions. But Astro hits the sweet spot of simplicity and power for most developer blogs.

Backend: You Don't Need One

Honestly. Your blog posts are Markdown files in a folder. Your build tool converts them to HTML. A CDN serves them. There's no backend.

If you want a CMS experience (editing in a browser instead of VS Code), look at Decap CMS (formerly Netlify CMS) or Tina CMS. They add a visual editor that commits Markdown files to your Git repo. You get the CMS workflow without a database.

But if you're a developer, just write in your editor. It's faster, you get version control for free, and there's nothing to maintain.

Database + Auth + Hosting

Database. None. Your content lives in Markdown files in your Git repo. If you need structured data (tags, categories, author info), use frontmatter in your Markdown. Astro's content collections validate this data at build time, so you catch errors before they go live.

Auth. You don't need it. If you want to gate some content (paid newsletter archives, for example), add a simple auth layer later. But for a blog, just publish everything.

Hosting. Cloudflare Pages gives you unlimited bandwidth on the free tier. That's not a typo. Unlimited. Vercel and Netlify are also excellent with generous free plans. I've served hundreds of thousands of pageviews per month without paying a cent.

What I'd Skip

WordPress. I know, it powers 40% of the internet. But as a developer, you're paying for a CMS you don't need, dealing with PHP you don't want to touch, and managing security updates for plugins that slow your site down. Hard pass.

A database-backed CMS. Ghost, Strapi, Payload. They're great products, but they need servers, databases, and maintenance. For a blog, that's unnecessary complexity.

Comment systems you host. Use Giscus (GitHub Discussions-backed) or just don't have comments. Self-hosted comment systems are spam magnets that require constant moderation.

Excessive analytics. Google Analytics is overkill for a blog and requires a cookie consent banner. Plausible or Umami give you the metrics you actually need (pageviews, referrers, top pages) without the privacy headaches.

Getting Started

1. Create the project. Run npm create astro@latest and pick the blog template. You'll have a working blog in under two minutes.

2. Write three posts. Before you touch the design, write three real posts. Content is what matters. A beautiful blog with no posts is worthless.

3. Customize the design. Tweak the Tailwind styles. Add your branding. Make it yours. But don't spend more than a weekend on this.

4. Deploy to Cloudflare Pages. Connect your GitHub repo. Every push auto-deploys. Done.

5. Set up analytics. Add Plausible or Umami so you know what's working. Then start writing consistently.

The best blog stack is the one that gets out of your way. Astro plus Markdown plus a free CDN host. Write posts, push to Git, they're live. That's it. Stop optimizing the stack and start writing.