Blot turns a folder into a website
Turning a local folder into a live website – with no traditional CMS or UI – is the core idea behind Blot, a blogging platform that syncs files from services like Dropbox or Google Drive and renders them as a static site. Commenters compare it to both old-school Apache directory hosting and modern static site generators, praising its simplicity, public-domain code, and long-term reliability, while noting gaps around self-hosting documentation and initially opaque pricing that the creator has since addressed. Many see it as “static site generation as a service” that makes blogging accessible to non‑developers who just want to write files and have them appear online.
What Blot Is
- Described as “static site generator as a service” that turns a folder of files into a website.
- Monitors storage backends like Dropbox/Google Drive and auto-syncs changes, avoiding manual uploads.
- Supports multiple source formats (e.g., Markdown, docs, image galleries) and converts them to HTML.
- Targeted at people who haven’t used static site generators and want to avoid traditional web dev complexity.
Comparisons & Alternatives
- Compared to services like tiiny.host, site44, spinup.dev, Dropbox’s former public-folder hosting, as well as classic Apache/nginx folder-based static hosting.
- Some note that generic web servers can “turn folders into websites” too, but Blot adds auto-conversion, templates, analytics (in other tools), and sync.
- Mention of related or similar projects: Blosxom, scriptogr.am, zrok integrations, md2website, tree’s HTML mode, caddy/nginx markdown modules.
Hosting & Self-Hosting
- Code is public domain and on GitHub; self-hosting is possible but described as non-trivial and poorly documented.
- Some want a Docker image, clearer self-hosting docs, and even paid/self-hosted “enterprise” support.
Developer Experience & Internals
- Implemented as an Express app using pandoc to convert files to HTML, with a dashboard.
- A public TODO file is used to drive a changelog/news page directly from commits and tasks.
- URL behavior includes: underscore-prefixed files don’t become pages; posts can define custom URLs via metadata.
Pricing & Business Model
- Hosted service is $5/month, but several commenters found the price hard to discover because it was initially only visible on the signup flow.
- Strong feedback that a clearly labeled pricing page is important; later a dedicated page is added.
User Experiences
- Multiple long-time users report high satisfaction, ease of use, and praise for responsiveness of support.
- Used successfully for blogs, photography sites, and TTRPG content, with workflows like RSS-to-email.
Critiques & Open Questions
- Frustration from at least one user over declined payment and lack of self-hosting documentation.
- Questions about routing internals, dynamic data from remote databases, table-of-contents support, RTL templates, and an autoplaying website demo remain largely unanswered or unclear.