Some time ago, there were only so many tools you could use, and you actually needed the knowledge to achieve something that was worth looking at (I’m not talking about a blogpost blog).

In this blog entry we will be exploring a couple of platforms to build your personal profile or blog, and what options lay in between.

range of options to analyze

We will assume you do know how to code - even at a basic level. As an example, you should be able to clone a github repository like personal-website-nextjs-chakra to use as a template.

We will also assume you know what Notion.so is, and that you can create a simple page, and share it with the world.

At this point, should you continue down the dev and code your own website in NextJS? or should you leave code aside and use Notion?

Notion is a flexible tool, that allows you to edit flawlessly and apply basic formatting that can potentially be translated to Markdown. If you are thinking on a scalable solution that does not need a high level of customization, this could be a good option. It’s fairly easy to get started, and learning the basics will take you no time.

If you want to go deep into customization, or you don’t like the format that notion provides (in general a sober one that fits all tastes). You will need to get into coding, so you are left with the option of using NextJS, and setting up a full grown up project, or are you really?

What other options do we have?

There are actually tools that are half way between sticking to Notion’s style and platform and coding your own website.

Some of these tools are already seeing the potential of Notion as a backend for your content sites - Notion as a CMS -. The topic itself has been heard for a while, ever since the first (unofficial) versions of Notion API were published. These tools or platforms aim to convert your Notion workspace into somewhat of a webpage, mainly by overriding it’s style.

It is a great idea to begin with:

Notion is an easy tool that anyone can use without prior knowledge
It’s more flexible than plain text editors in terms of both formatting and layout
It’s in the cloud, so data should be accessible with a microservice architecture (Notion’s API is in Beta as of September 7, 2021 )
It has user and permission based access

So it’s all pointing like this would be an excellent solution to have a simple CMS as the backend for our website - or even for notion to be our website! - But what where those solutions that where in between Notion and Coding? And what are we really interested in when looking for such a tool? Below is a diagram of the most important things to take into account when building your website.

If you could only choose two, what would you stick to?