Jekyll vs. Medium

Jekyll is well suited for users who would like to have all content within source control (Git) along with the code used to produce the website. Because everything it produces is static assets (HTML, CSS, etc.), sites created with Jekyll are super fast, with very little needed on the server side of things. There are also a few really great free solutions for deploying and serving Jekyll websites. Jekyll will be tough to maintain for users who are not web developers, comfortable using Git to update content. There are 3rd party solutions for maintaining Jekyll-based sites without having to touch the code, but this will cost extra money. Also, because there is no server-side language, you will need to look elsewhere to handle things like contact forms.

Incentivized

If you are vanity publishing and just want to see your stuff on the web, it is very, VERY easy to get involved with. Of course, your writing is not likely to stand out if you don't have a clear plan. The more I use it, the more I like it. The user interface is extremely well-done. I kinda wish my WordPress-based blogs had editors that were that easy to use.

Incentivized

• Static site generation
• Dynamic templates
• Single-page applications
• Advanced, multi-page navigation and organization with template hierarchy

Incentivized

• User-friendly interface and editing features
• Easy to categorize articles to ensure they are found
• Change tracker helps review changes before article is published.

Incentivized

• Straight out of the box, Jekyll lacks a friendly WordPress-style back-end. You'll be working in Liquid (HTML), Sass (CSS), and Markdown (content) files. If you're already comfortable with these languages, you'll feel at home in no time. If not, you may need to consider getting someone else's expertise to set up the site, and then use another back-end (probably paid) to make editing your site's files less intimidating.
• If you use GitHub Pages for the free hosting, be forewarned that GitHub only white lists a few plugins for their own compilation. This usually isn't a problem (you can compile on your own computer if need be), but can be annoying at times.

Incentivized

• It can be harder to get your content seen as medium is a popular platform.
• It is still early days for us to track back success (traffic, rank etc) from posting to medium regularly. I hear tracking success outside vanity metrics can be hard for others too.
• I am yet to figure out how to create and add to magazines - these have the potential to be a good audience booster, but not too clear.

By comparison, most online editors are clunky. The Medium editor is amazingly powerful and still easy to use.

Incentivized

We found the support desk of Medium to be really good. They are very focussed on customer service and are willing to go all out to help in every way they can. They are fast to respond and they are also very knowledgable at what they do. They know the importance of being customer-focused.

Incentivized

Medium is dirt easy to use. The hard part is figuring out if it is worth the effort to include it as part of our content-marketing strategy.

Incentivized

All the other CMS's I've used try to make it easy for the nontechnical user to manage a website, at the expense of adding complexity and weight to the system. Jekyll takes the exact opposite approach, eschewing all unnecessary complexity. If you know what you're doing in a code editor, Jekyll will probably feel like a breath of fresh air to you.

Incentivized

Medium is easy to use. It is easy to add highlights and emphasis in paragraphs. It is easy to add images and videos anywhere in your articles. It makes article writing fun and easy to share. Other products were more cumbersome and awkward to use or were more expensive to operate.

Incentivized

• Jekyll has improved our time to market in cases of new projects
• Jekyll has reduced the cost of hosting a website

Incentivized

• Making enough money to pay back the monthly subscription fee takes a long time to reach that level.
• I've gotten a lot more recognition for being an SME in many areas and have received more interest professionally.
• Writing enough articles that are also high enough quality to attract followers takes a lot of time out of my weeks.

Incentivized