Last night I did some research on static blog publishing. The winner for me was easily Pelican because:

1. it is built with Python.
2. it supports plugins.
3. it uses a sensible template engine I can tweak.
4. it allows me to write in the text editor of my choice.

Give or take a few bullet points this essentially is what every recently built static blog publishing engine looks like. I was ready to take the plunge when I realized: I think I am happy about these features because I am a programmer who likes to tweak things. As a keeper of a simple weblog (this one) what I really want is an OS X app that

1. stores my posts in iCloud.
2. can therefore sync between computers (and phone).
3. publishes locally to a directory or to S3.
4. light generation of an index and archives.
5. markdown formatting.

It doesn’t even need to have an editor, though it’d be fine if it did, but I generally write in Markdown.

After using Medium, I realized my needs for writing are just text-area, light formatting with Markdown, and the ability to drag in images. I don’t need tags. I don’t need comments. And I definitely need a service (S3 or Dropbox) that will just be up without any tweaking or maintenance on my part.

What I think is cool (Pelican) is not what I really want to use every day (mystery OS X app).