I started my blogging journey in 2009, few months after starting my first job. The world was recovering from the 2008 financial crisis and there was a lack of projects in the company I had joined. Getting bored at work with nothing to do I started exploring Blogger and soon had my first blog up and running.

Being an Engineer by heart I would keep fiddling with the HTML code of my blog to change the layout or add new features. I soon realized that I need a platform that gives me more control and decided to move to a self-hosted WordPress blog in 2011.

While WordPress gave me control over the layout, I was still at the mercy of my hosting provider. My blog was offline for days because I exceeded the file quota allocated to me and I had to move to a higher tier to get it back online. On another occasion, my blog got infected with malware and there were pop-ups all over. The loading speed was a perpetual issue, my blog would take forever to load because the server space was shared by so many other websites (that's how shared hosting works).

Fast forward to 2021, I have ditched hosting providers and host all my blogs on my own server that I purchased from Digital Ocean. I have now all the control that I want. I have tweaked the server performance so that my blogs load fast, I have ensured that the server is secure, and I don't have to worry about losing my content due to exceeding the quota allocated by the hosting provider.

So, Why This Move?

While my current setup (WordPress + Digital Ocean) gives me the much-needed control, I have decided to move my personal blog to ScrollStack, giving away a lot of control to someone else! It was not an easy decision for me to make. Here is why I did it.

While I now have complete control over all the aspects of blogging, it comes with a lot of overhead. Once in a while, you have to deal with issues like these because a security update broke something:

Or mails like these:

While fixing these issues doesn't take long, dealing with them when all you wanted to do was write is a pain! Not to mention all the periodic updates that you need to do to ensure your site is secure from any vulnerability. A lot of time gets sucked away by these activities.

Going back to a hosting provider was not an option for me - most of them have pathetic support, and a few good ones are too expensive for a part-time blogger like me. So, when I saw Ritesh's post about this shiny new tool he was building for creators, I decided to give it a try.

Though I created accounts on ScrollStack for all my blogs, I was hesitant to dive in, mainly because of the following reasons:

1. Writing on WordPress gives me a lot of flexibility on how I want the content to appear. With a little bit of coding, I can customize the layout as per my needs. For e.g., I can add a Recommended Articles section at the end of my post to ensure that the old content also gets some love from time to time.

2. I own my content completely. If I want to move out of WordPress, I can take my content with me.

3. I can monetize the content using Google Adsense.

4. ScrollStack is quite new and does not have a lot of features that I need.

However, after much contemplation, I decided to move my personal blog to ScrollStack. Except for the 2nd point above, I realized everything else is a non-issue. Let me explain point by point.

1. While WordPress has given me a lot of flexibility, I spend more time fiddling with the layout or optimizing the website than writing the actual content. With ScrollStack I can focus on writing and leave the site maintenance to their team.

2. Not being able to export my content is still an issue. Now that even Facebook and Google let users export their content, I hope the team will provide some solution for this.

3. While I can't use Google Adsense, ScrollStack offers amazing monetization opportunities.

4. Joining a platform when it's new has its own perks! You can get the username you want, your voice is heard by the decision-makers, you see the platform grow, and when it becomes big you can brag to your friends that you were one of the early adopters! :)

Additionally, ScrollStack has launched some very cool features recently, such as,

1. Whatsapp Newsletters

2. Support for Creators

3. Making it easy to create content in regional languages. I created an account for my mother on ScrollStack and she finds it super easy to publish her writing now!

मेरी कलम से

अपने अंदर की उथल-पुथल और मन के भावों को कागज़ पर उकेरने की एक छोटी सी कोशिश

manjudixit.scrollstack.com

This article by Samir covers all the unique features available on ScrollStack.

Considering the above reasons, I've decided to move my personal blog to ScrollStack. While no product is perfect, I am confident that ScrollStack is on the right path to disrupt the way content is created.

While my website will still exist, with the blog section moving to ScrollStack, I'll be spending less time on maintenance.

As for my other blogs (e.g., The Finance Lab), I'll keep them on WordPress for now, but will gradually bring them to this platform.

That's the plan for now. I'll share an update in the coming months on how this transition went for me.

I write about anything that piques my interest. Jargons scare me, so I try to keep it simple. You can find more about me here.

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