The site address: domain, Hugo, GitHub and Cloudflare

In the previous post I wrote about cheap routing: Jev already picks who does each task, and Clef is in testing. This part is a different subject. I needed an address on the internet and a simple way to have a site.

What I wanted to solve

On 24 September 2026 I had already decided to create a personal site, a public diary of this journey. I work during the day, and at night and on Sundays I build with AI agents. I wanted a place with my name, to teach for free what I am learning.

The basics were still missing. What address people would type. How the pages would be made. Where the code would live. Who would put it on the internet.

The next day, 25 September 2026, I bought the domain rodrigoesporto.com at Cloudflare, for $10.46 per year. The other pieces I chose were these: Hugo to generate the pages, GitHub to keep the code with history, Cloudflare to publish.

I pay Cloudflare for the domain. I am not reviewing the company from the outside. I am telling you about a tool I use.

Quick summary

• On 25 September 2026 I bought rodrigoesporto.com at Cloudflare for $10.46 per year.
• I chose a static site: pages already built, with no program assembling the text on each visit.
• Hugo is the program that turns the texts into those pages.
• The code lives on GitHub, in a private repository, with a history of each change.
• Cloudflare publishes. For a personal site, start simple: your own domain, a static site, and automatic publishing.

First: what a domain is

A domain is the name you type in the browser. This site lives at rodrigoesporto.com.

Picture the sign in front of a house. Without a sign, the mail can still find the lot. With a sign, anyone arrives by saying the street name.

The real mechanism is a worldwide list of names. You rent a name for a period, you pay the company that registers it, and that name points to the place where the site sits. The analogy breaks here: you nail a house sign once. A domain expires and you pay again. Mine, in this purchase, was $10.46 per year, at Cloudflare, on 25 September 2026.

I wanted my own domain, not a borrowed address like “mysite.somehost.com”. The public name I use is Rodrigo ES Porto. The address follows the same name.

First: what a static site is

A static site is a set of pages that are already finished. The visitor asks for the page and gets the file. There is no program on the server assembling the text at that moment, and no database behind every click.

Picture a printed menu, not a cook who takes the order and only then starts frying. You open the page and it is already there.

A program then reads the text files and writes the files the browser knows how to open. The comparison stops here: a paper menu does not grow a new dish on its own. If I want a new post, I generate the pages again and publish the new version.

Why this matters for a personal diary: fewer moving parts. Fewer parts, fewer things to break. Fewer things for an attack to find. A static site is cheap, fast, and has little to go wrong. That was the criterion.

First: what Hugo is

Hugo is a static site generator. It takes the texts and turns them into pages that are ready, fast, and simple.

Think of a small print shop. You hand over the originals. It hands back the newspaper already laid out. You do not draw each page in the browser by hand.

Inside, Hugo reads the content, applies the look, and writes the final files. The analogy does not cover the pace: a paper print shop stops. You run Hugo again whenever the text changes.

I chose Hugo for this diary. The decision in this part is only this: static pages, generated by Hugo.

First: what GitHub is

GitHub is a place on the internet to store code, with a history of each change. Picture a vault that does not keep only today’s version. It also keeps what yesterday looked like, and what changed.

The mechanism is called Git: each change can become a save point. If something breaks, you can go back. A metal vault does not play back the film of the changes. GitHub does.

The repository for this site is private. A repository, in one sentence, is the project folder plus the history. Private means the vault is not open to anyone on the internet. The published site is public. The code it comes from is not.

First: what Cloudflare is

Cloudflare, in this post, has two simple roles. It is where I registered the domain. And it is who I chose to publish the site.

I will not walk through putting it live. That is another article. What belongs here is the pair: the name with them, the publishing with them.

The lesson I would leave, without the dashboard: for a personal site, prefer automatic publishing. You do not need to become a server operator to keep a diary online.

What I used

I used the domain rodrigoesporto.com, bought on 25 September 2026 at Cloudflare, for $10.46 per year. I used Hugo to generate the static site. I used GitHub, with a private repository, to keep the code with history. I used Cloudflare to register the address and to publish.

I will not talk about login, plan, or account. What matters for the reader is the design, not the panel.

How it went

This was not the building of the site. It was the choice of parts.

If you want to copy the logic, not the brand, the path is this:

1. Write in one sentence what the site is. Mine is a public diary of a journey with AI, for beginners, free.
2. Buy a domain that matches your public name, if it is still free. Mine is rodrigoesporto.com.
3. Pick a static site generator. Mine is Hugo.
4. Pick a vault for code with history. Mine is GitHub, private.
5. Pick who publishes. Mine is Cloudflare. Prefer a setup where publishing does not depend on you switching a server on by hand.

When those pieces exist on paper, you still do not have a built site. You have a design. That already avoids one kind of pain: stacking tools halfway because the last one did not fit.

What went wrong, or what I learned

In this slice I do not have an error message to paste. What stuck was the lesson, and it is boring because it is simple.

For a personal site, start simple: your own domain, a static site, and automatic publishing.

It is tempting to add login, comments, a database, a store, a dashboard. Each extra piece is a door. I wanted few doors. A static site has little to go wrong or to be attacked. The problem I had was a text diary.

One more thing I will not drop: the address is mine. If I change who publishes tomorrow, rodrigoesporto.com is still the path people type.

None of these tools replace judgment. They shorten the path between “I know what I want” and “it is live”.

Costs and limits

The only cost I can pin down in this part is $10.46 per year for the domain, at Cloudflare, purchased on 25 September 2026. The unit is US dollars per year. The comparison base is that purchase, on that date. The source is the purchase record itself.

I will not invent a price for Hugo, GitHub, or publishing so the bill looks complete. No checked number, no figure.

What this mix does well: a personal site, text pages, a diary. Fast to open. Little to break, or for someone to touch what they should not.

What it does not do: it is not a social network. It is not an app with sign-up. It does not build a different page for each visitor. If your project needs that, this design is the wrong tool.

A limit on evidence: I use what I describe. I did not run an independent speed or security test for this article. The claim that a static site is cheap, fast, and has little to go wrong is the criterion of the choice, not a published lab result.

Who it is for, and who it is not for

It is for you if you want a site of your own, with your name, to publish text, and you do not want to become a server administrator.

It is not for you if the project needs login, a cart, a user panel, or a custom page for each person. Then a static site is the wrong instrument.

It is also not for you if you still do not know what you want to write. No tool replaces the text. Buying the domain first, with an empty head, only gives you a nice address pointing at nothing.

Closing

I wanted an address of my own and a simple way to exist on the internet. On 25 September 2026 I bought rodrigoesporto.com for $10.46 per year. I chose Hugo, private GitHub, and Cloudflare. The rule I would leave for someone starting out: your own domain, a static site, automatic publishing.

In the next post I tell the story of building the site in Antigravity: plan first, 12 stages, one commit per stage.

If you want to follow the journey, I am on X: @RodrigoesPorto.

Sources and links

• Hugo: https://gohugo.io/
• Domain registration at Cloudflare: https://developers.cloudflare.com/registrar/
• GitHub:
• This site: https://rodrigoesporto.com/