Your Blog, Your Server: Self-Hosted Blogs v1.0.0

The blog side of Ecency 4.4.1 got big enough to need its own post. The short version: there are now three answers to the question "where does my blog run". One of them costs nothing and does not involve us at all.

This is the companion to the main 4.4.1 release post. If you already run a blog with us, skip to the themes. After introducing hosted blogs we have received good feedback and suggestions, this is officially releasing, tagging v1 of blogs that you can quickly run on your own, customize more details, etc. We expect more customizability and opportunities for creators and community builders as we look forward to future of hosted blog instances (personal and community).

Run it yourself, for free

Go to ecency.com/hosting, start the signup and one of the branches is self-host. Pick your look, name the domain you plan to use if you have one, then instead of a payment step you get a download: the deployment files for your own server.

Inside the archive are five files and nothing else.

config.json, the configuration you just chose in the browser
docker-compose.yml, the single service that serves the site, pinned to a specific release rather than a moving tag
.env, holding that pinned release, the port and the bind address
Caddyfile, a working reverse proxy config with HTTPS
README.md, the instructions, with your own domain already filled in wherever it appears

Two commands and it is running. There is no account with us behind it, no key we hold, no invoice, no phone-home. Your posts were never on our server anyway: they are on the Hive blockchain. This is a reader for them that you control end to end. If you later want us to run it instead, the same configuration file works on our hosting.

That is the point of the whole exercise. Software you can leave is software you can trust.

Four new looks, plus themes that own their layout

The style roster is now nine: Medium, Minimal, Magazine, Developer and Modern Gradient, plus four added in this release. The new four are layout level themes, which means they do not simply recolor the page, they change its shape.

Journal is ink on paper: one quiet column for long-form writing, entries dated like journal entries with thumbnails set to the side.
Reader puts your archive beside the open post, the way a feed reader works, for blogs where people arrive to browse rather than to read one post and leave.
Gallery is a wall of pictures. The image leads and the words step back, in a grid that adapts to the space it has.
Terminal is a console listing: a prompt at the top, filters as flags, then a dense dated index. Monospace throughout, no card in sight.

Magazine picked up a proper archive in the same release, with a hero entry spanning the grid and rows beneath it.

Because a theme can now own its layout, the Configuration Editor only shows the options that a given theme actually uses. No more setting a value that quietly does nothing.

The Configuration Editor got guided

Configuring a blog used to mean understanding every field at once. Now:

Appearance comes from one accent color and one font pairing. The accent reaches everything that looks interactive rather than only headings.
Fields validate as you type, with the same rules the server applies, so a bad value is caught in the panel instead of after saving.
There is a live preview. Unclaimed subdomains show a preview of what a blog there would look like.
The panel is translatable, like the rest of Ecency.
The one control that could blank a whole site is gone. Configuration values can no longer take down the page they configure.

New in this release for readers of your blog: an About page, read time on posts plus link unfurls so a pasted link renders as a card.

Sign in with whatever you already use

Owners can now sign in and configure a blog with any Hive browser extension, with a picker when several are installed. The signer reports which wallet actually signed rather than naming one brand for all of them. Hivesigner works, with the client id filled in for hosted blogs and the redirect URI registered automatically, so there is no developer setup step. HiveAuth speaks the proper protocol now, so a HiveAuth session can save configuration.

Only the owner can configure an instance. For a personal blog that is the blog account. For a community instance it is a separate account, because a community account holds nobody's keys.

Blogs are part of Hive, not a mirror of it

Hosted and self-hosted blogs now carry a reader-facing Hive layer: comments, votes plus the built-in composer on personal blogs, with reward controls, so you can write on your own blog and the post lands on Hive like any other. The "View this post on Hive" link points to Ecency.

On the technical side, every instance ships static SEO files, a canonical policy that keeps your blog and the Hive copy from competing with each other, responsive media plus a per-tenant feed that pages properly. Images, configurations and templates are versioned together, so an instance always runs a coherent set.

If you would rather we run it

Managed hosting did not stand still either.

$2 per month for a blog at yourname.blogs.ecency.com, $3 per month with your own custom domain. Communities can have an instance too.
You can now customize before you pay, rather than picking a look after checkout.
Paying in HBD is one click. A custom domain can be added mid-term for a prorated amount.
After signup you land on your new blog already signed in, with the settings panel open.
An unclaimed subdomain shows a claim landing page, so someone who finds it knows what it is.
Ecency Pro includes a free blog, so the $19.99 per year membership covers hosting as well as the badge.

Which one should you pick

Take the free self-host if you have a server and want zero dependency on us. Take managed hosting if you want a domain, HTTPS and updates handled while you write. Take Pro if you want the blog plus the membership. The configuration file is the same in all three cases, so switching later is a file copy rather than a migration.

Screenshots

Full details of every change are in the public repository. The full setup guide ships inside the download.

Start at ecency.com/hosting.