How to build your indie Gamedev blog?

As an indie game developer, having a blog is a powerful way to document your journey, share insights, and build an audience. Whether you’re writing about game design, development tips, or personal experiences, a blog helps you connect with fellow developers and gamers. But how do you build one? Should you use WordPress, a static site generator, or something else? Let’s break it down.

Why Start a Gamedev Blog?

Before diving into the technical side, let’s talk about why you should have a blog, or better yet, why you don’t have one already???

If you’re an indie developer, even if you are not building games but software in general, a blog is essential for sharing your content and building your personal brand. How will people discover you if you’re not visible online? Sure, having a Twitter (now X) account is good, but you also need a dedicated space where you can express yourself in depth, like this blog.

So knowing this, let’s find out what is the best choice to build your own blog.

Self-Hosted WordPress

This blog is powered by WordPress, You might ask: «If I’m a developer, why would I use WordPress when I could build a blog with [insert tech here—React, Vue, Blazor, etc.]?»

The answer is the same as: «If I’m a game developer, why use Unity/Unreal/Godot instead of building my own engine?»

If you want to invest time, resources, and money (yes, money—because every second you spend breathing in this world, you need to eat, sleep, and pay rent, and all of that unfortunately costs money), that’s up to you and your personal preferences.

But for me? I’d rather spend my time making games than building a blog about making games. That’s why I use WordPress.

To make a WordPress blog you don’t need a degree, you only need a hosting (mine is Banahosting) and a domain name (gdanilo.com). The hosting can be like $75 (I always use the 50% BlackFriday discount) per year and a domain name, I use Namecheap, can be $6.49 the first year (this price is for a .com domain name, if you want another, like .dev or .me is another price).

If you are a broken bastard, like I was not a long time ago, there are another solutions for you to make your own blog, I will explain it later in this post.

We can summarize the pros and cons of building a WordPress site.

Pros:

✔ User-friendly – No coding needed, great for beginners.
✔ Plugins & themes – Thousands of customization options.
✔ Dynamic content – Easy to update and manage.

Cons:

❌ Slower performance!!!!! – Requires optimization for speed.
❌ Security risks!!!!! – Needs regular updates to avoid vulnerabilities.
❌ Hosting costs!!!!! – You’ll need a good hosting provider (Banahosting is the best).

Static Site

If you’re a developer who wants full control over your blog, blazing-fast performance, and zero bloated WordPress headaches, then a static site generator (SSG) might be your perfect match.

The benefits of making a static blog are noticiable from the beginning, they are insanely fast, you don’t need a database or PHP just pre-built HTML/CSS. They are more secure than a WordPress, that means No server-side exploits (since there’s no backend). And of course it is cheaper than WordPress because you can deploy on GitHub Pages, Netlify, or Vercel for $0.

All of this sounds cool and cheap, but there is a catch:

❌ Requires some technical comfort – Git, CLI, and basic templating.
❌ No built-in CMS – Need to edit files manually (or use a headless CMS).
❌ Dynamic features need workarounds – Comments? Use Disqus or GitHub Discussions.

Headless CMS

You want the speed and security of a static site, but editing Markdown files isn’t your vibe. What if you could have a sleek admin dashboard (like WordPress) while keeping all the benefits of a static site?

Enter: Headless CMS + Static Site Generator—the hybrid approach for devs who want easy content updates without sacrificing performance.

How It Works

1. Content Management: Write posts in a headless CMS (like Strapi, Ghost, or Forestry).
2. Static Generation: Your SSG (Hugo, Jekyll, etc.) pulls content via API during build.
3. Deployment: The final site is still 100% static (no live database).

Top Headless CMS Options

1. Strapi (Self-Hosted, Free & Open Source)

Full control – Host it on your server (Node.js required).
Custom content types – Perfect for game dev logs, tutorials, etc.
REST/GraphQL API – Works with any SSG.

Best for: Devs who want maximum flexibility.

2. Ghost (Paid, but Beautiful)

Built for blogging – Clean UI, Markdown support.
Managed hosting – Starts at $9/month (or self-host).
Fast & lightweight – No WordPress bloat.

Best for: Writers who want a polished editor.

3. Forestry (Git-Based CMS)

Edit content directly in your repo – No API needed.
Static-site friendly – Works with Hugo, Jekyll, etc.
Free tier available – Good for small blogs.

Best for: Devs who want Git-backed content.

Pros & Cons

✔ Best of both worlds – Easy content updates + static speed.
✔ No lock-in – Your content stays portable (API or Git-based).
✔ Scalable – Handle traffic spikes effortlessly.

❌ More complex setup – Requires API knowledge.
❌ Small cost – Strapi/Ghost may need cheap hosting.

Conclusions

Yep, I vibe write that last part, it’s very noticeable, the fact is that I have never used a Headless CMS or a static site, I started blogging in the Google platform Blogger long time ago when we didn’t care about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and the AI was just dreams in some fiction movies. It was simpler times.

As I always say, don’t get discouraged before you even start, people still uses Google to search content and they don’t care if your blog is in Blogger, Wix, WordPress or some custom CMS build with react, they want the content and that content needs to be written by a human, your knowledge. You can use AI for the boring part but ensure the meat, the central part of your blog, is human.

Final Recommendation

I don’t run ads in my blog, if this content its useful to you in the future, please considere to invite me to drink a coffe.