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Saturday, 14 November 2026 Reading Room

Tech

How I Built This Blog: Hugo + Firebase + Buttondown in 30 Minutes

Why This Stack? As a sysadmin, I wanted a blog that's: Fast : Static sites load instantly Cheap : Firebase free tier handles tons of traffic Simple : No databases, no server maintenance SEO-ready : Hugo generates clean, optimized HTML Here's exactly how I built this site in under 30 minutes. The Stack Hugo : Static site generator (like Jekyll, but faster) PaperMod : Clean, minimal Hugo theme…

dev.to ·

In the tech community, building a fast, cheap and simple blog is a common pursuit, especially for sysadmins. The author of this blog, using the stack Hugo + Firebase + Buttondown, achieved just that in under 30 minutes.

The choice of this stack was driven by the need for speed, affordability and simplicity. Hugo, a static site generator like Jekyll but faster, PaperMod, a clean and minimal Hugo theme, Firebase Hosting, Google's CDN with free SSL, Buttondown, a simple newsletter platform, and Google Analytics for tracking website readership were all selected for their respective strengths.

Setting up the blog was a straightforward process. The tools were installed on a Windows machine using Chocolatey, then Hugo and Firebase tools were installed via npm. A new Hugo site was created, the PaperMod theme was added, the Hugo config file was updated with SEO basics and some additional parameters, Google Analytics was integrated, and finally, the site was deployed to Firebase hosting.

The Buttondown newsletter platform was utilized to create a newsletter page with an embedded form. This allows visitors to subscribe to receive short, practical sysadmin tips directly in their inbox. The custom domain was connected through Firebase Console and DNS records were updated accordingly.

The result is a live site that can handle hundreds of thousands of visitors without any server maintenance. The build process takes about 2 minutes and the deployment takes just 30 seconds. The total cost for reasonable traffic is $0/month. The author plans to use this platform to write about secure home networking, a topic he feels is often overlooked.

Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.

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