First Impressions Of Blog Host Pika

There’s something about Pika, which I’m loving after a few days of use. It’s more than just simple or minimal; it’s pure and elegant. The typography and layout of text and links are exquisite.

Beautiful Basics

Pika lacks so many things found on convoluted WordPress. Lacking features is a feature! Lacking doesn’t necessarily mean “missing.” Pika feels light as a feather; WordPress feels like an unwieldy freight train (wreck?). And it feels like a return to the simple web of yore, which I love.

You might say Pika focuses on quality over quantity. Sure, it doesn’t have a few “standard” features, but it nails the basics with excellence.

I’ve often been drawn back to Blogger (yes, ye ol’ blogspot Google bought circa 2004) due to its very basic feature set. Pika is simpler and cleaner than Blogger. It works easily on my iPhone 12 mini as a web-app saved to my home-screen.

Besides Blogger, I’ve considered a few other super simple blog platforms (Blot, Bear, Write.as), but Pika is the one grabbing me now. I hope it grabs you too.

Feature-Less

Pika just launched about a month ago but is already beautiful as-is. So I’d be afraid to sully it through additional features. That being said, if there’s one thing I might like to see added, I think it’d be tagging, or what Blogger calls “labels” and WordPress calls “categories”. Tags help me organize and find posts, and I think it helps readers too.

For the record, some other things I notice Pika omits (so far):

• No stats
• No comment system
• No reader/feed
• No email subscription
• No media manager
• No word count
• (No WordPress blocks)

I accept these omissions; none are deal-breakers. Besides, Pika has these great things going for it:

• Hyper focused on simply writing
• Home page also serves as an archive page
• Links look like links (brutalism)
• Simple theming (Halloween!)
• The dashboard is the most simple I've ever tried so far
• RSS built in
• Don't need a native app on mobile, just save web-app to home-screen
• Markdown support
• Lovely editor
• Custom CSS
• Post export (via request)
• Auto light/dark mode!
• Letterbird (free contact form customizable to your blog theme)

Final Thoughts

I might blog in another post some of the key reasons I’m leaning away from WordPress (once again). But this post is all about why I’m leaning towards Pika over other simple and small blog hosts. The Good Enough video tutorial really compelled me to try Pika.

I plan to keep kicking the tires for a few weeks and see how things go. But I’d be lying if I said I don’t already feel ready to pay money for Pika Pro. I value Pika.