Getting started
SkyScribe Sites vs. your own frontend
Once you have written something, you need a website to show it. There are two ways to get one, and they are not mutually exclusive.
The short version
- Want a good-looking blog live today, with zero code? → SkyScribe Site.
- Have a developer, or want full control of the markup and design, or need to fold the content into an existing site? → build your own frontend with the SDK.
Side by side
| SkyScribe Site | Your own frontend (SDK) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds the frontend | SkyScribe, via the design wizard | You, or a developer |
| Code required | None | Yes — the SDK is a code library |
| Hosting | Included, run by SkyScribe | Yours (Vercel, Fly, Cloudflare, a VPS…) |
| Address | your-name.skyscribe.site, or a custom domain | Any domain you control |
| Cost | Needs an active PRO subscription — one Site Slot per site | SDK is free and open source; you pay only for your own hosting |
| Design control | Wizard options: templates, colours, fonts, layout | Total — you write the markup and CSS |
| Time to launch | Minutes | A development project |
| Content it shows | One Publication | One or many Publications |
| Feeds, sitemap, meta tags | Built in | A few lines with the SDK helpers |
They share the same content
A Publication is just content in your Bluesky account. Nothing about it is tied to how it is displayed. So the same Publication can:
- power a SkyScribe Site and a hand-built SDK site simultaneously (for example, a quick SkyScribe Site now, a bespoke site later, with no migration);
- power neither — your writing still exists and is still yours.
Note
Switching later is not a data migration. You point a new reader at the same Publication; the old one keeps working until you turn it off.
Choosing
Pick a SkyScribe Site if you want to write, not build; you are happy
choosing from wizard options rather than designing from scratch; and a
skyscribe.site subdomain or a custom domain is enough.
Build your own frontend if you (or someone you work with) write code; you want a design that is not a template; you are adding a blog to a site that already exists; or you want to host it yourself.
Next
- To set up a hosted site: SkyScribe Sites.
- To build your own: Build your own frontend.
- Either way, you will want Authoring for writing and organising the content itself.