I need a platform where it's easy to add screenshots to posts for CTF reports. Some of the issues below are dealbreakers for me, but I am enjoying how quick-and-easy Letterpad is to use.
1 - Letterpad doesn't have a catalog of design templates and you'll need some knowledge of front-end code to make the blog look how you want. I can do it, but that's not a great use of my time. Their documentation also doesn't mention how to modify the CSS at all.
2 - Blogs come with a default post titled "Coming Soon". What I dislike about this, is that they stick your full name in, along with a meta description (i.e. text that appears for the post, when it gets shared or linked to). You can remove it after-the-fact, which I did.
3- I was able to copy-and-paste a Medium post to publish, but it doesn't look great. I should take it down soon cause it's hot-linking the images from Medium. Letterpad posts will auto-save, which means you don't have to click "Save" anywhere. URLs of posts are also customizable and can be edited after publishing.
4 - Letterpad has free image-hosting, but all images are assigned randomly generated names after upload. And they're kept in a pile on the backend called "Media" with no way to organize them.
5 - They do offer free online stock images (via Unsplash), but while they look great on desktop, the images don't scale when viewed on mobile, so they appear out-of-proportion. Also, even in the browser, you'll notice that the word "About" on the default About page is too close to the left margin.
P.S. - After one night, I realize it's immensely valuable to me to have a casual place to document my progress. I spent over a decade on LiveJournal doing regular long-form, in-depth writing, while also preferring to be as succinct as possible. That balance is an art. And a necessity. I tried treating Facebook like LiveJournal, but I analyze and synthesize info at a rate that'd just overwhelm others. I've known this for most of my life and kept myself small because of it. It's hurt my self-growth and left me always feeling like I'm too much, so I want to be committed to myself now.