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Why I Started a Blog on My Own Computer

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Self-hosting build log part 1. An introductory piece for the series. Reasons for the decision and considerations made at that time.

→ Next: Part 2 — One-Pyeong Server (Docker)

TL;DR

  • Tistory and Naver blogs are good, but five issues were bothersome: ads, enforced tone, data lock-in, risk of service closure, restrictions on experimentation.
  • By opting for my own computer (mini-PC) + WordPress + domain, these five issues are resolved in one go.
  • Initial cost = annual domain renewal fee of $10. The mini-PC was already available.
  • Trap: “I take full responsibility” — backup, security, updates, and downtime are all my responsibility.

1. Initially Considered Tistory

The moment I decided to create a blog, the natural first candidates were Tistory and Naver blog. It takes 5 minutes to sign up, and you’re ready to write. It has good visibility in Korean searches and offers a mobile app.

However, after three days of creating, five issues became bothersome.

Issues Explanation
Ads Platform ads in between and around my posts. Mixed content that doesn’t align with my tone.
Enforced Tone The platform’s design reflects a “friendly everyday” tone. Objective and technical writing feels awkward.
Data Lock-in My written content resides in the platform’s database. Difficult to extract in Markdown format.
Risk of Service Closure If the service shuts down like Yahoo Blog or Daum View, all posts would be lost.
Restrictions on Experimentation Unable to attach new plugins, AI-friendly robots.txt, or custom analysis tools.

The content I wished to produce was “study, trading, automation” — technical, long, and steady in tone. These platforms didn’t align well with that.

2. Exploring Other Options

There are about four alternatives besides self-hosting.

Five places to host the blog, and why four were ruled out How the hosting choice was made. Tistory and Naver Blog were ruled out for ads, enforced tone, data lock-in, closure risk and limits on experiments. Medium and Substack were ruled out as English-first subscription platforms with an enforced tone and weak Korean reach. GitHub Pages with Hugo is the lightest option but relies on outside services for comments, analytics and plugins. A public Notion page has weak search visibility and cannot set an AI-friendly robots.txt. Self-hosting on a mini-PC with WordPress and a domain solved all five annoyances at once and was chosen. Where should the blog live? Tistory · Naver Blog Ads · enforced tone · data lock-in · closure risk · limited experiments Ruled out Medium · Substack English-first · subscription model · enforced tone — weak Korean reach Ruled out GitHub Pages + Hugo Lightest, but comments, analytics and plugins rely on outside services Ruled out Notion public page Weak search visibility; no way to set an AI-friendly robots.txt Ruled out Self-hosting — mini-PC + WordPress + domain Solves all five annoyances above at once Chosen
Figure 1. Five places to host the blog. Four were ruled out, each for its own reasons; what remained was self-hosting on my own computer.

Reasons for eliminating each:

  • Medium/Substack: Targets English speakers + subscription model + enforced tone. Weak exposure for Korean.
  • GitHub Pages + Hugo: Static site; the lightest option. However, comments, analytics, and plugins all depend on external services.
  • Notion Public Page: Weak exposure to search engines. Unable to set an AI-friendly robots.txt.

3. Self-hosting = Solving Five Issues at Once

Issues that Bothered Me In Self-hosting
Ads None. They won’t appear unless I place them.
Enforced Tone Full control over themes and CSS. My tone remains intact.
Data Lock-in Data resides on my computer. Automated daily backups.
Risk of Service Closure As long as my computer doesn’t fail, it stays up.
Restrictions on Experimentation Freedom to implement mu-plugin, robots.txt, llms.txt, and trackers.

Moreover, an added advantage: in the age of AI search (GEO), automatically generating English versions enables global visibility. Multi-language support is generally challenging on platform blogs.

4. Cost Comparison

Item Tistory/Naver Self-hosting (Star Whale)
Signup Fee 0 KRW Annual domain renewal fee of $10 (≈ 14,000 KRW)
Hosting Free (includes ads) Mini-PC electricity costs (already powered on)
Ad Revenue Platform takes half 100% to me (will not place ads, so irrelevant)
Backup Managed by the platform (but difficult to extract) My responsibility (automated with cron)
Maintenance Cost 0 KRW 0 KRW (aside from the domain)

For those without a mini-PC, a Raspberry Pi ($35) or a second-hand mini-PC ($100–200) + domain is sufficient. Still, the total cost for a year remains below $50.

5. Trap — “I Take Full Responsibility”

The true cost of self-hosting is not monetary but responsibility.

Responsibility Frequency Can be Automated?
DB Backup Daily ✅ Cron + automatic to Obsidian Vault
Security Updates Weekly △ wp-cli + notifications
SSL Renewal Every 90 days ✅ Handled automatically by Cloudflare Tunnel
Attack Response 24/7 ✅ WAF + Wordfence
Downtime (Power/Internet) Occasionally ❌ Handled by myself
Site Design/Plugin Conflicts Occasionally ❌ I debug myself

All five responsibilities previously handled by platform blogs now fall on me. Automatable tasks will be automated, and non-automatable ones I will accept.

The self-hosting trade-off: what gets solved and what I take on Self-hosting removes the five annoyances of platform blogs: no ads, full control over theme and CSS, the database lives on my own computer, the site stays up as long as that computer does, and mu-plugins, robots.txt and llms.txt can be added freely. The price is responsibility, not money. Of the jobs a platform used to do, DB backups, SSL renewal and attack response are automated, security updates are semi-automated, and downtime from power or internet outages plus design and plugin conflicts are handled by hand. Solved The five platform annoyances Ads None — they appear only if I add them Enforced tone Full control over theme and CSS Data lock-in The database lives on my computer Closure risk Stays up as long as my computer does Limited experiments mu-plugins · robots.txt · llms.txt, freely Trade-off The price is responsibility Taken on Jobs the platform used to do Automated DB backup · daily · cron SSL renewal · 90 days · Cloudflare Tunnel Attack response · 24/7 · WAF + Wordfence Semi-automated Security updates · weekly · wp-cli + alerts By hand Downtime · power or internet outage Design and plugin conflicts · I debug
Figure 2. The self-hosting trade-off. The five platform annoyances go away, and the jobs the platform used to do become mine. What can be automated is automated; the rest I accept.

FAQ

Q. Can I opt for a cloud VPS if I don’t have a mini-PC?
Yes. A $5/month VPS such as AWS Lightsail, DigitalOcean, or Vultr will suffice. However, this incurs monthly costs and limits control freedom compared to a mini-PC.

Q. Will a traffic surge cripple my home internet?
With Cloudflare Tunnel + CDN in front, static content is absorbed by Cloudflare. Dynamic requests reaching my home mini-PC are the only ones processed. Typically, even a viral spike can be handled.

Q. Do I need to turn on the PC every time I write?
The WordPress admin interface = logging in at /starport. Accessible from anywhere. The PC used for writing and the mini-PC are separate. As long as the mini-PC is powered on 24/7, it’s sufficient.

Q. Can foreigners read my Korean posts?
This will be discussed in part 9 (Polylang). If only one Korean language post is written in Obsidian, the LLM will automatically generate an English version and handle hreflang with Polylang. My burden = one Korean version.

Q. Did I regret this choice?
I regretted for about a day — during the initial setup, I struggled with Apache settings, SSL renewals, and DB permission issues until 3 AM. Once it’s finished, I won’t do it the same way again.

Next Part Preview

Part 2 — One Square Meter Server: Running WordPress on Docker. The process of getting WordPress, MariaDB, and Redis operational on a single mini-PC using Docker Compose in 30 minutes.

Summary in One Line

Platform blogs are easy to start, but the five issues of ads, tone enforcement, and data lock-in are bothersome. Self-hosting resolves these five issues simultaneously—setup takes a day, automation daily, and accepting responsibilities = an annual cost of $10.

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