What I use
Only things I actually use. The running cost is deliberately tiny.
Hosting & network
- Small public VPS (1 vCPU / 981 MB) — This site runs here: nginx + the static build + the overlay network. It is enough, and that is the point.
- Domain + DNSPod DNS — DNS via Tencent DNSPod, updated by script.
Hardware
- ESP32-C3 — The workhorse for embedded experiments: RISC-V, Wi-Fi/BLE, cheap enough to break.
- An old laptop (i7-8550U / 16 GB) — All builds, Docker labs and most of the writing happen on it.
Software
- Astro — The static site framework.
- nginx — TLS termination, static hosting, security headers.
- Docker — Every experiment runs in throwaway containers.
- Gitea — Self-hosted Git and the deploy pipeline.
- EasyTier — Joins the machines into one overlay.
- GoAccess — Cookie-less, server-side analytics.
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