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Building a Serverless Blog Platform: The Modern Approach

Learn how to create a high-performance, cost-effective blog using serverless architecture and cloud services without managing traditional servers.

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Building a Serverless Blog Platform: The Modern Approach to Content Management

Discover how to create a high-performance, cost-effective blog using serverless architecture and cloud services without managing traditional servers.

🌟 Introduction to Serverless Blogging

The blogging landscape has evolved dramatically over the past decade. From traditional WordPress installations requiring dedicated servers to today's modern serverless approaches, content creators now have more efficient, scalable, and cost-effective options. Serverless architecture has revolutionized how we build and deploy web applications, including blogs.

In this comprehensive guide, we'll explore how to build a serverless blog platform from scratch, leveraging cloud services like AWS Lambda, API Gateway, DynamoDB, and S3. This approach eliminates the need to manage servers, reduces costs, and provides exceptional performance and scalability.

Why go serverless for your blog? Simple: you only pay for what you use, scaling is automatic, and you can focus on creating content rather than maintaining infrastructure. Let's dive into building a modern, lightning-fast serverless blog platform.

🔍 Understanding Serverless Architecture

Before we start building, let's clarify what "serverless" actually means. Despite the name, serverless doesn't mean there are no servers involved. Rather, it means you don't need to provision, manage, or scale servers yourself.

Key Components of Serverless Architecture

  • Function as a Service (FaaS): Code that runs in stateless containers (like AWS Lambda)
  • Backend as a Service (BaaS): Third-party services for database, authentication, etc.
  • API Gateways: Handle HTTP requests and route them to appropriate functions
  • Storage Services: Store static assets and files (like AWS S3)
  • Content Delivery Networks: Distribute content globally with low latency

Benefits for blog platforms include pay-per-use pricing (often pennies per month for personal blogs), automatic scaling during traffic spikes, and reduced maintenance overhead. You can focus on writing content while your cloud provider handles the infrastructure.

🏗️ Planning Your Serverless Blog Architecture

A well-designed serverless blog platform typically consists of these components:

  1. Static Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript files hosted on object storage
  2. Content Delivery Network: For fast global content delivery
  3. API Layer: For dynamic functionality like comments or search
  4. Database: To store blog posts, comments, and metadata
  5. Authentication: For admin access and possibly user comments
  6. Media Storage: For images and other media files

Let's design our architecture using AWS services, though similar approaches work with Azure, Google Cloud, or other providers.

┌─────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
│ CloudFront  │────▶│  S3 Bucket   │────▶│ Static Site │
│    (CDN)    │     │ (Web Hosting)│     │  (Frontend) │
└─────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └─────────────┘
       │                                         │
       │                                         │
       ▼                                         ▼
┌─────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌─────────────┐
│ API Gateway │────▶│ AWS Lambda   │────▶│  DynamoDB   │
│             │     │ (Functions)  │     │ (Database)  │
└─────────────┘     └──────────────┘     └─────────────┘
                           │
                           │
                           ▼
                    ┌─────────────┐
                    │     S3      │
                    │ (Media/Files)│
                    └─────────────┘

[Image suggestion: Architecture diagram showing the flow between services in a serverless blog platform]

🛠 Setting Up the Frontend

For our frontend, we'll use a modern JavaScript framework. Based on recent research, SvelteKit offers excellent performance for serverless blogs, though Next.js, Gatsby, or even plain HTML/CSS/JS are viable alternatives.

Creating a SvelteKit Project

# Install SvelteKit
npm create svelte@latest my-serverless-blog
 
# Navigate to project directory
cd my-serverless-blog
 
# Install dependencies
npm install
 
# Start development server
npm run dev

Configuring for Static Site Generation

SvelteKit can prerender your blog into static HTML files, which is perfect for serverless deployment. Update your svelte.config.js:

import adapter from '@sveltejs/adapter-static';
 
/** @type {import('@sveltejs/kit').Config} */
const config = {
  kit: {
    adapter: adapter({
      pages: 'build',
      assets: 'build',
      fallback: 'index.html',
      precompress: true
    }),
    prerender: {
      default: true
    }
  }
};
 
export default config;

Creating Blog Post Components

Let's create a simple blog post component:

<!-- src/routes/blog/[slug]/+page.svelte -->
<script>
  export let data;
  const { post } = data;
</script>
 
<article>
  <h1>{post.title}</h1>
  <div class="metadata">
    <span>Published: {new Date(post.publishedAt).toLocaleDateString()}</span>
    <span>Author: {post.author}</span>
  </div>
  <div class="content">
    {@html post.content}
  </div>
</article>
 
<style>
  article {
    max-width: 800px;
    margin: 0 auto;
    padding: 2rem;
  }
  
  h1 {
    font-size: 2.5rem;
    margin-bottom: 1rem;
  }
  
  .metadata {
    color: #666;
    margin-bottom: 2rem;
    display: flex;
    gap: 1rem;
  }
  
  .content {
    line-height: 1.6;
  }
</style>

☁️ Setting Up AWS Services

Now let's set up the AWS services needed for our serverless blog.

Creating an S3 Bucket for Website Hosting

# Create S3 bucket
aws s3 mb s3://my-serverless-blog
 
# Configure for static website hosting
aws s3 website s3://my-serverless-blog --index-document index.html --error-document index.html
 
# Create bucket policy for public access
cat > policy.json << EOF
{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Principal": "*",
      "Action": "s3:GetObject",
      "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::my-serverless-blog/*"
    }
  ]
}
EOF
 
# Apply policy
aws s3api put-bucket-policy --bucket my-serverless-blog --policy file://policy.json

Setting Up CloudFront for CDN

CloudFront will distribute your blog globally with low latency:

# Create CloudFront distribution
aws cloudfront create-distribution \
  --origin-domain-name my-serverless-blog.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com \
  --default-root-object index.html \
  --enabled \
  --default-cache-behavior ForwardedValues="{QueryString=false,Cookies={Forward=none}},ViewerProtocolPolicy=redirect-to-https,AllowedMethods={Items=[GET,HEAD,OPTIONS],Quantity=3}"

Important note: This eliminates the CORS issues mentioned in the CloudNature article by serving all content from the same domain.

📊 Creating the Backend API

For dynamic functionality, we'll create a serverless API using AWS Lambda and API Gateway.

Setting Up DynamoDB for Blog Storage

# Create DynamoDB table for blog posts
aws dynamodb create-table \
  --table-name BlogPosts \
  --attribute-definitions AttributeName=id,AttributeType=S \
  --key-schema AttributeName=id,KeyType=HASH \
  --billing-mode PAY_PER_REQUEST

Creating Lambda Functions

First, let's create a Lambda function to get all blog posts:

// get-posts.js
const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient();
 
exports.handler = async (event) => {
  try {
    const params = {
      TableName: 'BlogPosts',
    };
    
    const result = await dynamodb.scan(params).promise();
    
    return {
      statusCode: 200,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify(result.Items)
    };
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      statusCode: 500,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ error: error.message })
    };
  }
};

Next, a function to get a single blog post:

// get-post.js
const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient();
 
exports.handler = async (event) => {
  try {
    const postId = event.pathParameters.id;
    
    const params = {
      TableName: 'BlogPosts',
      Key: {
        id: postId
      }
    };
    
    const result = await dynamodb.get(params).promise();
    
    if (!result.Item) {
      return {
        statusCode: 404,
        headers: {
          'Content-Type': 'application/json',
          'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({ error: 'Post not found' })
      };
    }
    
    return {
      statusCode: 200,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify(result.Item)
    };
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      statusCode: 500,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ error: error.message })
    };
  }
};

And a function to create a new blog post:

// create-post.js
const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
const { v4: uuidv4 } = require('uuid');
const dynamodb = new AWS.DynamoDB.DocumentClient();
 
exports.handler = async (event) => {
  try {
    const requestBody = JSON.parse(event.body);
    const { title, content, author } = requestBody;
    
    if (!title || !content) {
      return {
        statusCode: 400,
        headers: {
          'Content-Type': 'application/json',
          'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
        },
        body: JSON.stringify({ error: 'Title and content are required' })
      };
    }
    
    const postId = uuidv4();
    const timestamp = new Date().toISOString();
    
    const params = {
      TableName: 'BlogPosts',
      Item: {
        id: postId,
        title,
        content,
        author: author || 'Anonymous',
        createdAt: timestamp,
        updatedAt: timestamp
      }
    };
    
    await dynamodb.put(params).promise();
    
    return {
      statusCode: 201,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify(params.Item)
    };
  } catch (error) {
    return {
      statusCode: 500,
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ error: error.message })
    };
  }
};

Setting Up API Gateway

Now, let's create an API Gateway to expose these Lambda functions:

# Create API
aws apigateway create-rest-api --name BlogAPI
 
# Get the API ID
API_ID=$(aws apigateway get-rest-apis --query "items[?name=='BlogAPI'].id" --output text)
 
# Get the root resource ID
ROOT_RESOURCE_ID=$(aws apigateway get-resources --rest-api-id $API_ID --query "items[?path=='/'].id" --output text)
 
# Create a resource for /posts
aws apigateway create-resource --rest-api-id $API_ID --parent-id $ROOT_RESOURCE_ID --path-part "posts"
POSTS_RESOURCE_ID=$(aws apigateway get-resources --rest-api-id $API_ID --query "items[?path=='/posts'].id" --output text)
 
# Create GET method for /posts
aws apigateway put-method --rest-api-id $API_ID --resource-id $POSTS_RESOURCE_ID --http-method GET --authorization-type NONE
 
# Create a resource for /posts/{id}
aws apigateway create-resource --rest-api-id $API_ID --parent-id $POSTS_RESOURCE_ID --path-part "{id}"
POST_ID_RESOURCE_ID=$(aws apigateway get-resources --rest-api-id $API_ID --query "items[?path=='/posts/{id}'].id" --output text)
 
# Create GET method for /posts/{id}
aws apigateway put-method --rest-api-id $API_ID --resource-id $POST_ID_RESOURCE_ID --http-method GET --authorization-type NONE
 
# Create POST method for /posts
aws apigateway put-method --rest-api-id $API_ID --resource-id $POSTS_RESOURCE_ID --http-method POST --authorization-type NONE

🔄 Integrating Frontend with Backend

Now we need to connect our SvelteKit frontend with our serverless backend:

// src/routes/blog/+page.js
export async function load({ fetch }) {
  try {
    const response = await fetch('https://your-api-gateway-url/posts');
    const posts = await response.json();
    
    return { posts };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error fetching posts:', error);
    return { posts: [] };
  }
}
// src/routes/blog/[slug]/+page.js
export async function load({ params, fetch }) {
  try {
    const response = await fetch(`https://your-api-gateway-url/posts/${params.slug}`);
    
    if (!response.ok) {
      return {
        status: response.status,
        error: new Error(`Post not found`)
      };
    }
    
    const post = await response.json();
    return { post };
  } catch (error) {
    console.error('Error fetching post:', error);
    return {
      status: 500,
      error: new Error('Failed to load post')
    };
  }
}

🚀 Deployment Process

Let's automate the deployment process with a simple script:

#!/bin/bash
# deploy.sh
 
# Build the SvelteKit project
npm run build
 
# Deploy to S3
aws s3 sync build/ s3://my-serverless-blog --delete
 
# Invalidate CloudFront cache
aws cloudfront create-invalidation --distribution-id YOUR_DISTRIBUTION_ID --paths "/*"
 
echo "Deployment complete!"

Make it executable and run it:

chmod +x deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

**📱 Adding Features

Written by

Marcus Ruud

At

Fri Nov 10 2023