About

Blot is a blog­ging plat­form with no in­ter­face. It turns a folder into a blog. Files in­side your blog’s folder be­come blog posts au­to­mat­i­cally. Blot exists so you can blog with your fa­vorite tools. Use your fa­vorite text-ed­i­tor to write and Blot does the rest.

Why does Blot exist?

I like the flexibility and simplicity of plain text files. For years I’ve used text files to store my notes. One day it occured to me that there is enough information encoded in the files—their content, metadata and location—to generate a blog, without interfering with the structure of the folder or my writing process.

Why does Blot cost money?

The fee pays for the servers which host your blog. It also covers the cost of providing support. Most importantly, it means Blot operates in your best interests alone, without balancing the needs of advertisers or investors.

Can I host Blot on my own server?

Yes, Blot’s source code is dedicated to the public domain.

Alternatives to Blot

900dpi, Amb-1, asocialfolder, Boxfolio, Brace, Calepin, Cloud Cannon, Droppages, Dropplets, Duetto, Fargo, Harp, Kissr, Markbox, Pancake, Scriptogram, Site44, Sitebox, Skrivr, Small Victories, Synkee, Updog

Multiple blogs

You can manage multiple blogs from the same account. Each blog is independent: you could use Dropbox with one and Git with another. Your blogs can use the same Dropbox account, or different accounts. Each blog costs $3 per month.

Subscription renewals

I will email you one week before your subscription is renewed to give you time to cancel your subscription or update your billing information. If you forget to cancel in time, contact me and I’ll send you a refund.

Bandwidth and storage limits

There is a soft cap of 1TB of bandwidth + storage combined per year, per blog. If you exceed this, I will ask you to meet the cost of hosting your blog, or I will help you set up Blot on your own server. Dropbox’s traffic limits do not apply because Blot hosts the contents of your folder on its own server.

Language support

Blot’s dashboard, documentation, support and templates are available in English.

Canceling your subscription

You can cancel your subscription on the account page. You can choose to delete your account immediately, or wait until the end of your billing period.

Payment processing

Blot uses Stripe to process subscription payments. This means your payment details do not touch Blot’s servers.

Is Blot still maintained?

Yes, and there’s plenty to do. Take a look at what I’m working on.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Blot’s earliest customers for their patience. In particular thank you Julie, Josh, Chris, Frank, Johannes and Angie. A number of people deserve particular gratitude for their help and encouragement over the years:

Paul Esch-Laurent, Frank Meus, Nash Pitre, Jack Pearce, Roy Blankman, Shawn Medero, Shibel K. Mansour

The source code for Blot depends on the work of countless people who chose to dedicate their software to the benefit of the public. These are some of their names:

Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, Igor Sysoev, Salvatore Sanfilippo, Matt Ranney, Junio Hamano, John MacFarlane, Lovell Fuller, Caolan McMahon, Niels Provos, David Mazières, Daniel Wirtz, Matthew Mueller, Jakub Pawlowicz, TJ Holowaychuk, JP Richardson, Ivan Sagalaev, Juriy Zaytsev, Kevin Mårtensson, Sophie Alpert, Kevin Barabash, Erik Demaine, John-David Dalton, Christopher Jeffrey, Iskren Ivov Chernev, Tim Wood, Chris Wanstrath, James Halliday, Mike Marcacci, Mihai Bazon, Christoph Tavan, Robert Kieffer

How long has Blot been around?

Work on Blot began in the summer of 2013. Blot opened to the public a year later.

How long do you plan to run Blot?

Decades, at least.