Tech
How I built this site (and what it costs: almost nothing)
20 June 2026 · Yash Gokhale · 1 min read
People assume a personal website is expensive or complicated. This one costs about £7 a year - the domain - and nothing else.
The stack
The site is built with Astro, a framework designed for content sites. Pages are written once, built into plain HTML, and served from a global CDN. No servers to manage, nothing to patch, no monthly bills.
Writing posts
Every post on this blog is a simple Markdown text file. I write it, save it in a folder, push it, and the site rebuilds itself automatically. No CMS logins, no databases.
Hosting for free
The site is hosted on Netlify’s free tier, which also powers the contact form - no backend code at all. The only thing I pay for is the domain name.
The takeaway
Simple tools, thoughtfully arranged, go a long way. If you’ve been putting off building your own site, this is your sign.