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Since stepping away from RapidWeaver and Stacks, I’ve often been asked which tool I would now recommend for building websites. My answer is quite simple: AI.
For most people's needs, a dedicated website-building app is no longer necessary. Many such apps now try to incorporate some AI features but there really is no need for an app to sit in the middle of this. I find it much simpler and far more flexible just to work with AI directly. Your requirements may differ from mine, but this post offers a basic introduction to using AI to create a website.
Why use AI?
AI is now highly capable of producing clean, semantically correct, responsive and accessible websites. With clear guidance, the results can be exceptional. It can also save a huge amount of time and money.
The example in the first video tutorial below took around seven minutes to build from the initial prompt, followed by another 5 minutes to refine a few details.
For this example, I’m using the Codex app as my desktop coding agent. At the time of recording, it was included with my regular $20-per-month ChatGPT Pro subscription, and the work shown used approximately 2% of my weekly credit allowance - which works out at probably around 10 cents!
Using Codex to Build a Landing Page
Using Codex to Build a Blog
The blog you’re reading now was built entirely with AI. It is the section of my new site that I have been asked most about. It took less than ten minutes for AI to get the core functionality working, followed by around 30 minutes of refining the design until it looked and worked exactly how I wanted.
I later got Codex to build an online administration area where I am able to add, edit, duplicate and delete posts.
All of this for (almost) free. No buying of apps or add-ons or any ongoing subscription costs. And totally customisable to what I need and want from a blog. You can't ask for more.
The blog is full-featured with Categories and Topics, Filtering, Related posts, RSS feed, pretty urls and even an online editor!
The video below is a quick example of getting started with building a blog. It uses a folder of markdown files to provide the blog content.
