Moving to Zola (a static site generator)
Tags: #website, #programming, #update | 2026-02-28
Manually editing HTML files is okay for small stuff, it's even better in some cases since I can do whatever I want without having to worry about any limitations or weird syntax of a static site generator. However, when I created this site, having a blog section was on my mind, and I knew that it would be a pain to maintain it without a CMS or a static site generator. Think of all the HTML files I would have to edit every time I wanted to post something new and the fact that I would have to manually add pagination and tags with their corresponding pages... It would be a nightmare.
trying out other static site generators
So, I wanted to use a static site generator. I had some experience with Zoner (an SSG for creating Zonelet-style blogs), so I started tinkering with it. However, I quickly realised that some functionalities that I wanted were either not possible or would require a lot of workarounds. Even styling the recent blog posts was a bit of a pain. So, naturally, I DID what any normal person would do... I forked it and started modifying it to fit my needs lol. I was able to get it working, created a tag system, and extended the special archive tag of it, but it was a bit of a mess, and I wasn't really happy with the result. After a while, I realised that I was basically creating my own static site generator. So, I was like, why not just create my own static site generator? After some experiments with Jinja2, I figured out this was a bit too much work. So, I gave up. I created the site without the blog section and left it at that.
giving Zola a try
However, the stupid itch of having a blog section was still there. So, on Feb 25th, I asked for recommendations on onio's chatroom. One user, sorry I forgot your name (UPDATE: It was fennie!), recommended Zola, and I decided to give it a try. It was pretty easy to set up, and I was able to migrate the existing content without too much trouble. Then, I started working on the blog section. I created some base templates for the blog index and the blog posts, and it was basically done. Now, I can just create a new markdown file to create a new blog post. Afterwards, with the help of their documentation, I added a tag system (using Taxonomies) and pagination (it has a dedicated documentation section here.)
conclusion
Now, finally, I have a blog section where I can post about whatever I want, and it's pretty easy to maintain. I might change a few things here and there in the future, but as of now, I am really happy with how everything turned out and can recommend Zola to anyone.