The Genesis of a Blog

Building a personal blog from scratch with JavaScript, Node.js, and Express.

Screenshot of blog homepage
Custom-built blog platform

From Journal to Web App

I’ve always written reflections and teaching notes, but I wanted a space to publish them online in a format that was mine—not just Medium or WordPress. That meant building a blog engine myself.

Instead of using a pre-made CMS, I built the blog with Node.js and Express, wiring up routes, EJS templates, and Sequelize for database management. It was my first time going full-stack with JavaScript.

Along the way I learned how to manage authentication, CRUD operations for posts, and category filtering. I also added Markdown support for writing posts faster and cleaner.

Sample Route Snippet

Express made it straightforward to handle dynamic blog routes: 

app.get("/", async (req, res) => {
  const posts = await Post.findAll({
    where: { status: "published" },
    include: Category,
    order: [["createdAt", "DESC"]],
  });

  res.render("index", {
    title: "Hey Kniaz",
    layout: false,
    recentPost: posts[0],
    posts: posts.slice(1),
    user: req.session.userName || null,
    activeCategory: null,
  });
});

app.get('/post/:id', async (req, res) => {
  const post = await Post.findByPk(req.params.id);
  res.render('post', { post });
});

Tools Used

  • JavaScript (Node.js, Express)
  • EJS templating
  • Sequelize ORM
  • SQLite (development)
  • PostgreSQL (production)
  • Bootstrap 5
  • HTML/CSS
  • Markdown support
  • Fly.io (deployment)
Visit My Blog View fly.toml