If you are looking for a low-cost blogging platform on AWS, look no further!
I wanted something very easy to use, which has a lot of features and uses my core tools (AWS, Node, CDK, Markdown).
For this blog, I settled on Hexo, a static site generator. I have also used the more popular Hugo which solves the same problem.
For hosting, I am using AWS S3 with CloudFront and Route53. Deployed using CDK.
This setup is pretty easy if you are comfortable with Node and CDK. If you are not, you can refer to my blog repo on GitHub.
Prerequisites
- AWS Account
- AWS CLI Access
- Familiarity with NodeJS
- Familiarity with CDK is a plus
Highlights
- Init a new Hexo app
npm install aws-cdk aws-cdk-lib- Create a cdk/index.ts entry file
- Change the string parameters to match your environment
- Assuming Route53 domain and ACM Cert already exist. If not, comment out those resources to use the CloudFront URL.
- Create a cdk.json file
- Create the helper scripts in package.json
- The publish script parameters (BucketName & DistributionId) will not be available until you run the deploy
- More info on CDK package scripts
Extensions
Be sure to install a VS Code extension like Grammarly! I thought I was a pretty good writer, but after I installed it I had to go back and touch almost every post!