Have You Discovered Bearblog yet?
Discovering Bearblog.dev
Have you heard about Bearblog.dev yet? This post shares how I ended up choosing Bearblog as my new home on the internet and how my internet disillusionment has evolved over the last several years.
From being the guy in the room who always knew every new niche social media platform, and how to make it work for content or brands, to the guy who honestly cannot imagine a single moment where opening Facebook feels enjoyable.
The internet is dead, and they killed it.
That’s what I used to believe. I used to believe that anyone could go online and instantly improve their lives.
I realised though, that the commercial internet, the way we see it in 2025, is the problem, not the online space itself.
I needed to find my own space on the internet, away from Zuckerberg and Musk, and reconnect with the last humans on the internet that still embraces these ideals.
The rules were simple, but chosen for longevity:
- The space needed to be as near free as I could get it. Who knows if I’ll have money in a month, honestly.
- The space needed to be simple to manage for someone like me who doesn't know enough coding (me, I'm that one) so I could focus on writing, not coding.
- The platform also needed to be simple to update; rather than me spending days on design elements, just focus on the content.
I learned about web rings, and how they were a part of an older version of the internet; when we used to create our own websites and simply… connect them together.
Webrings are defined as a way to discover new websites before search engines. Usually, a directory (like Yahoo!) would link to the main webring and you would then follow from there to other sites.
Some may consider this primitive now, but the advantage is a slower, more considered curation of the internet. A version where we learn and grow from our connections, and not, pump dopamine triggers into our content for more clicks and more views.
Obsidian Publish and Github Pages
I reached out to someone, I now consider a friend, Alex Hsu, through one of these web rings.
Alex, delightfully took pity upon me knowing nothing, and explained how he wanted something similar to what I was looking for. We both wanted a space online to talk to the universe, but also show our work, and ideally, maybe one day, connect with others, and growth our online profile.
He's since then made an amazingly minimul whilst attractive site that I'd recommend you visit.
Further to our conversations, we realised we were both inspired by Steph Ango the CEO of Obsidian.
Steph's approach to online content was both inspiring, and minimal; which turns out, is what I was looking for: a clean, uncluttered simple space to communicate with the world.
Discovering Steph, meant also exploring how Obsidian, could work as a solution to creating an online space through Obsidian Publish, which is Obsidian's online publishing service. It looked perfect, but, I was hesitant due to the inherent cost of the service.
So I moved on.
Learning about Github Pages was the next step. While I loved the idea of developng my own website from scratch through Github and publishing on Github pages, I was sadly blocked for three months trying to figure out how publishing my site worked; and even with some basic understanding of HTML and CSS, I struggled to get the site to form the way I prefered, and eventually abandoned the idea.
Though; now that I worked on Github for the first time ever, I find the platform extremely interesting, and I'm considering using it as a knowledge repository and work backup in the future. (Thanks Github reddit community for their help).
Discovering Bearblog: Why Bearblog.dev Finally Made Sense
Then came bearblog.dev. My friend Dave, and I then met one afternoon and discussed the problems I was facing. We both wanted the same thing, a space to write; and I was simply struggling to keep to the three rules we made.
We went back to my emails with Alex, and found he suggested bearblog.dev as a consideration.
Compared to Obsidian Publish and GitHub Pages, Bearblog offered exactly what I needed: minimal, simple, focused, and a distraction-free writing environment.
That afternoon, we just decided that it was better late than never, and we had nothing to lose, so we decided to explore what this Bearblog platform actually is. Within the space of 10 minutes each, we both had a blog ready to go.
Since then I've been researching everything Herman, the founder of Bearblog.dev has had to say about the online space, internet, tracking and I loved it.
Is Bearblog The Future?
Yes, while the full potential of bearblog.dev is unlocked through a marginal yearly fee (Which you can buy a lifetime fee which is nice) you don't get much more than you had; but if you cared, you'd get advanced analytics, and the ability to send emails or gather emails, nice.
I subscribed to Bearblog Premium for a year because I worried my site wouldn’t appear in Google Search. A previous line the site had: "purchase premium to be discoverable and on the Discovery Feed". I didn't need to be on the discovery feed (a bearblog.dev curated web ring), but I was concerned I wouldn’t be discoverable on traditional Google search too, which negates the whole point again.
Other than that; everything on Bearblog works for me, from the speed, to the minimalism to the ability to customise if I really wanted to, which is great to have a choice.
As Herman promised, Bearblog.dev really is a blogging platform where words matter most.
No, it's not "perfect" but I also like that, I don't want it to be, I cherish the human element of this platform enough to overlook what could also simply be a teething problem here and there.
Herman also outlines his ideas in this lovely roadmap which I suggest you read if you're interested.
I don’t know what Bearblog will look like in a year, but, I'm confident I've found a place that meets my objectives, a simple easy space on the internet to exist.
If you're looking for a lightweight, distraction-free writing tool, Bearblog may be the simplest and most honest blogging platform out there.