Today I'm putting version 1.0 of Project Broadsheet out in the world. It's a free, open-source way to run your own publication online — something I built for myself, and am now releasing because other people kept asking how I'd built it.
Why this exists
I started writing The Freethinking Times in 2024 on Ghost. By month three I was spending more time fiddling with the look of the site than writing. By month six I was paying about $30 a month for features I'd already built myself. By the end of the year I had a choice: keep paying for a platform that didn't quite do what I needed, or build my own.
Project Broadsheet is what came out of that.
What it is
A starting point for a real publication online. Out of the box, it gives you:
- A home page, section pages, and an archive.
- Author pages, a tag system, and an RSS feed for each section and writer.
- Reader features like dark mode, save-for-later, highlights, and notes.
- A search bar, a newsletter sign-up, a contact form, and optional quiet analytics.
- Longer-form pieces: reviews, a library for chaptered works, a glossary, and a page for primary source documents.
All of that is on from the start. There's no paid tier holding anything back, and no subscription at any point.
What it isn't
It isn't a hosted service, and it isn't a point-and-click builder. You need to be willing to edit plain text files and work with a setup that lives in a folder on your computer. If that sounds like too much, Ghost and Substack are genuinely good options — go with one of those instead.
What's next
The roadmap has what's coming. The docs cover what's here already. If you'd rather have someone else set things up, you can get in touch and hire me by the hour.
Thanks to everyone who tried it during the long pre-1.0 period and sent back bug reports, suggestions, and notes. Onward.