Why bearblog.dev?

A privacy-first, no-nonsense, super-fast blogging platform. No trackers, no javascript, no stylesheets. Just your words.

That about sums it up.

When I first came upon Bear, I was reminded of the outdoor ethics program Leave No Trace, a set of principles to guide outdoor adventurers to leave the spaces as when if not better then they found them. Bear leaves minimal to no trace relative to all the hyper-styled, hyper-scripted, hyper-optioned web publishing platforms out there.

And I’ve carefully considered a lot of them from my ameteur, self-taught web somewhat-tinkerer view: WordPress, ClassicPress, Blogger, TextPattern, Ghost, Blot, Kirby, Grav, Silvrback, Microblog, PicoCMS, Write.as, and more, recently narrowing down to Blot and Bear.

While Blot has its appeal and is a close second for me for its own reasons, and it’s also lean — not as lean as Bear, for me, Bear is it. I guess Blot as a flat-file system leaves me feeling a bit scattered, like it’s bigger and spread out, with so many individual files.

I didn’t know how much I sought something like this until I found and tested it out. It’s the bear necessities, in such a light and clean way, focused on words. So light and fast, while respecting the privacy of those who visit. Did I mention the light and fast part?

There is just enough power packed tidily into it’s minimal, clean dashboard: Markdown, YAML meta options, including the ability to add meta tags, pages outside the post feed, image upload and storage, custom navigation, and one customizable, super-light style sheet. RSS, Atom, and email feeds, too, oh my! You can even customize post templates and have basic analytics that respects visitors.

I love it. I look forward to settling in and making this a long-time home. Kudos to Herman for making and sharing this with the world.

Here’s to sharing some writing. Here’s to the work.