Medium vs WriteFreely
Thinking of swapping Medium for the open-source WriteFreely? Here’s the honest trade-off.
5.2k Go AGPL-3.0 15 days ago
What you give up vs Medium
- No paid subscription or paywall support for monetizing writing (unlike Substack)
- Very limited customization: no themes, plugins, or sidebar widgets
- No built-in email newsletter delivery to subscriber inboxes
- No analytics, comments system, or social engagement features
What you gain
- • Full data ownership — self-host WriteFreely on your own infrastructure.
- • No per-seat SaaS bill (Medium: paywalls and zero ownership of your audience).
- • Open-source code you can audit and extend (AGPL-3.0).