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Show HN: Jottings; Anti-social microblog for your thoughts

(jottings.me)
19 points vishalvshekkar | 1 comments | 12 Dec 25 08:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source

I built Jottings because I was tired of my own thoughts getting trapped inside algorithmic feeds where I had to perform. There was a huge mental load before posting something on X or Instagram.

Every time I wanted to share something small or unfinished, I opened Twitter and lost 20 minutes to the timeline. Writing a blog post felt too heavy for those smaller, quick thoughts. I just wanted a place to write something down quickly and hit publish.

Jottings is that place. It gives you a clean microblog on a domain you own. Posts show up in simple chronological order. No likes. No followers. No feed trying to decide what matters.

What Jottings is - A microblogging platform that builds fully static microblog sites - A free subdomain (you.jottings.me) or connect your own domain on PRO plans - Markdown, tags, RSS feed, links with preview, and image uploads - An optional AI writing helper when you are stuck or lazy to fix grammar - Optimized for SEO and AI search friendly - Analytics for your sites

What it is not - Not a social network - Not an engagement funnel - Not trying to keep you on the site - Not a replacement for long-form blogging, though you can use it that way

How it works Each Jot publish triggers a static site rebuild. The site is stored in Cloudflare R2 and served directly at the edge. Custom domains go through Cloudflare SSL for SaaS. I built it to be boring, reliable (barring Cloudflare's latest issues), and cheap to run.

Pricing Free tier for a subdomain, text posts, and a lot more. USD5 per month for custom domains, images, full Markdown, and the writing helper. I priced it to be an easy yes.

Limitations - No comments (on purpose) - No native apps yet (iOS is coming) - The writing helper is helpful but not magic - I am a solo founder, so features move at human speed

I use Jottings regularly to document what I build. It has been the lowest-friction way I have found to publish anything publicly.

Demo of Jottings site for product updates: https://jottings.jottings.me/ Demo of my personal Jottings site: https://jottings.vishalvshekkar.com (with custom subdomain)

I would love feedback from this community. What would make this better or more useful for you?

Check it out here: https://jottings.me (2 min set up) Feel free to write to me at vishal@vishalvshekkar.com

— Vishal

Show context
bastulos ◴[12 Dec 25 10:36 UTC] No.46242785[source]▶
Given you are already offering the product for free it would be cool to have a self hosted option.

Typically I'm not the one to suggest this on hobby projects being made into a product bc you gotta make money somehow to support this and I respect that to some appreciable degree.

replies(2): >>46242872 #>>46242949 #
1. vishalvshekkar ◴[12 Dec 25 11:03 UTC] No.46242949[source]▶
I hear you. I actually am quite open to making Jottings self-host-able. I might want to slice the multi-tenant layer out before I do that, only because that is complicated and not needed for someone to host and manage multiple sites, and is the part that primarily makes this a product. I'll give it a think.

I also hear you about the making money part, and I largely agree.