Make Your Personal Blog Website with Wagtail CMS

So I’ve been wanting to build my own blog for a while now, and after trying out a bunch of different platforms like WordPress and some CMSs, I finally found Wagtail. And honestly? It’s been pretty great. Let me tell you why I think Wagtail is perfect for a personal blog and how you can get started with it.

Why I Chose Wagtail

I know what you’re thinking: “There are like a million blogging platforms out there—why Wagtail?” Fair question. Here’s the thing: I wanted something flexible enough to customize, but not so complicated that I’d spend weeks just setting it up. Wagtail is very easy to set up and customize with templates, but you still get the power and flexibility you need.

And Wagtail is 10x faster than a WordPress website, and because it has much batter seo feature

It’s built on Django, which I already have some experience with, and it provides a really clean admin interface that doesn’t feel like it was designed in 2005. Plus, it’s open source, which means no monthly fees eating into my coffee budget.

What You’ll Need

Before we dive in, here’s what you should have ready:

Python 3.8 or higher is installed on your machine
Basic understanding of Python (you don’t need to be an expert, trust me)
A code editor – I use VS Code, but use whatever makes you happy
Some command line knowledge (nothing crazy, just the basics)

Getting Started

Alright, let’s actually build this thing. First, I recommend setting up a virtual environment because you don’t want to mess up your system Python packages.

python -m venv myenv
source myenv/bin/activate  # On Windows: myenv\Scripts\activate

Now install Wagtail:

pip install wagtail

Once that’s done, create your project:

wagtail start myblog
cd myblog
pip install -r requirements.txt
python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

That last command will ask you to create an admin account. Don’t forget those credentials – you’ll need them to log into your admin panel.

Now fire it up:

python manage.py runserver

Go to http://127.0.0.1:8000 And boom – you’ve got a Wagtail site running. The admin panel is at http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin.

Setting Up Your Blog

Here’s where it gets fun. Wagtail is all about creating custom page types. For a blog, you’ll want to create models for your blog index page and individual blog posts.

Create a new app for your blog:

python manage.py startapp blog

Then add it to your INSTALLED_APPS settings file.

In your blog/models.py, you’ll want something like this:

from django.db import models
from wagtail.models import Page
from wagtail.fields import RichTextField
from wagtail.admin.panels import FieldPanel
from wagtail.search import index

class BlogIndexPage(Page):
    intro = RichTextField(blank=True)

    content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
        FieldPanel('intro')
    ]

class BlogPage(Page):
    date = models.DateField("Post date")
    intro = models.CharField(max_length=250)
    body = RichTextField(blank=True)

    search_fields = Page.search_fields + [
        index.SearchField('intro'),
        index.SearchField('body'),
    ]

    content_panels = Page.content_panels + [
        FieldPanel('date'),
        FieldPanel('intro'),
        FieldPanel('body'),
    ]

Run migrations again:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

Creating Templates

Wagtail needs templates to display your pages. Create a blog/templates/blog directory and add your templates there. Here’s a simple one for blog_page.html:

{% extends "base.html" %}
{% load wagtailcore_tags %}

{% block content %}
    <h1>{{ page.title }}</h1>
    <p class="meta">{{ page.date }}</p>
    <div class="intro">{{ page.intro }}</div>
    <div class="body">{{ page.body|richtext }}</div>
{% endblock %}

Adding Some Style

The default Wagtail setup is pretty bare-bones, which is actually good because you can style it however you want. I added some basic CSS to make mine look decent, and I’m planning to customize it more as I go.

You can put your CSS in a static folder and link it in your base template. Nothing fancy is needed unless you want to get fancy.

What I Like About This Setup

After using this for my own blog, here’s what I appreciate:

The admin interface is actually pleasant to use. I can draft posts, schedule them, and manage everything without wanting to throw my laptop out the window. The StreamField feature (which I didn’t cover here, but you should definitely look into) lets you create really flexible page layouts. And since it’s Django under the hood, I can add any custom functionality I want.

A Few Gotchas

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, though. The learning curve is steeper than something like WordPress if you’re not familiar with Python or Django. And while the documentation is pretty good, sometimes you’ll need to dig around to figure out how to do something specific.

Also, deployment is on you. Wagtail doesn’t come with hosting, so you’ll need to figure that out yourself. I ended up using a simple VPS, but there are easier options like PythonAnywhere or Heroku if you don’t want to deal with server management.

Final Thoughts

Building a blog with Wagtail has been a really good experience for me. It’s given me way more control than I’d get with a typical blogging platform, and I actually understand how everything works. If you’re comfortable with Python and want a blog that you can customize to your heart’s content, I’d definitely recommend giving Wagtail a shot.