Wix and Wordpress are Expensive So I Decided to Build and Host my Website Myself

4 min readApr 29, 2020

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I taught myself very basic HTML and CSS to build my own website and learned how to use AWS to host it myself. This is a hub for where you can find everything that I did throughout this project.

Why Did I Do This?

I did this because I wanted to learn the basics of how to build a website and challenge myself by hosting it myself.

I also wanted to showcase my ability to use docker. It is a fantastic tool that I believe many companies could start using and help streamline processes that were once complicated.

Finally, I have always wanted a personal website. I figured I could also showcase skills and learn through the process. There is no time like the present to start learning and building.

What I Accomplished

I ended up with a very rough website built on HTML and CSS and you can find that here that I hosted using AWS.

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Weekly Recaps

Throughout the month I gave weekly recaps of what i had accomplished that week. You can find these linked below.

Video Tutorials

While I was learning and documenting my progress through blog posts on medium, I also made several tutorial videos on how to use different tools and accomplish different tasks. Here is the whole list:

Docker

One of the biggest tools that I used throughout this project is docker. I have used docker before and so glad I used it in this project. Having used Docker before for my home server, I was excited to use it again. It’s ability to containerize applications is amazingly simple. I stand by the fact that Docker makes deploying apps a breeze. If anyone is looking into doing anything server-side, I strongly recommend learning and using docker for its ease of use and versatility.

What I Would Have Done Differently

Mobile Optimization

If I were to do this project over again I would probably try and spend more time learning about HTML and CSS so that I could make my website look better. My website as of releasing it does not play very well with mobile phones and cuts off important information. By the time I had gotten the hang of HTML and CSS I had to move on to the next stage of my project. I will probably take some more time to edit my website and perfect it in the next coming weeks.

Photo by Benjaminrobyn Jespersen on Unsplash

Better Videos

I would also tidy up my videos and edit them instead of trying to do them in one take. Any time I would mess up I would have to start all over again. If I had decided to edit I could have cut this work time in half.

Resources

I could not have accomplished anything in this project if it weren't for a little help. I used several websites and videos throughout this project that helped me tremendously and allowed me to finish this project. Below are several of the resources that were the most help. Here are a few resources I found the most helpful:

Build An HTML5 Website With A Responsive Layout (Youtube)
W3School: This was literally the bible for learning HTML and CSS
Font Squirrel: This allowed me to easily add custom fonts to my website
A step by step Medium post on how to install docker on AWS

This project has taught me so much. I enjoyed every second of it and overcame the challenges that were in front of me. This project really inspired me to start projects more and do more things instead of wondering. I could have wondered what if for years but instead, I chose to dive in and get dirty with building a website. It isn’t perfect, but the knowledge and skills I attained are priceless.