about.
TheCookieSites is a SaaS (Software as a Service) project which aims at building websites on-the-go, without the need of any technical skills and for free! The idea is simple: you feed in your details and it will build + host (if you choose to host) the website for you. Effectively, you get a live website in like 10 minutes! And yes, you can do it even from your phone!
Also, I'm really happy and excited to mention that
This currently is the only one of its kind on the web!*
*based on the feedback from different people with varied backgrounds and my own extensive search considering parameters like ease of use, overall time consumption, affordability, level of web-dev skills required, flow complexity, data retention policy, quality of output and the type of hosting services offered.
This project started on the 7th of April'21, when out of no where, I got to thinking, "it
would be so good if there was something which could build websites easily". And then I was like, "wait,
if it's not, I guess I can make it myself!".
Then I got a very very basic functional thing to work by the next day. It did have a lot of issues. But
it surely gave me hope that the idea could be executed. And then after working on this for around 7-10
full days, I got the first live draft ready; after which, I kept making improvisations & security
revisons to the backend, worked on making the front-end look better, worked on making it more user
friendly and created more templates for the site-builder. Then there was the testing phase (in which
my sister helped a lot), after which this first release got ready.
Also, just to mention, the name "TheCookieSites" is so just because it sounded good. "TheCookieSites
does not use ANY non-essential cookies. Not even analytics!" What more do you expect from a site! 😁
the motive.
My all-time motive has been to make people's lives (including mine) simpler using tech. The specific motive behind this project was to simplify website-building for all. Be it someone who has some technical skills but is in a rush to get a website ready, or be it someone who is not into web development but needs a basic personal or an informational website, without spending too much time on finding the right resources.
If you check out the templates available in the site-builder, you'll see that it only contains templates that fulfil the needs of an individual. They either are templates for minimalistic personal websites or they are templates for basic informational websites. There are reasons for that too:
- One, I do not want people to skip learning web-development because they have an easy way out. It is a great skill to have and I strongly encourage people to learn it for building more advanced and personalised websites.
- Two, I do not want enterprises or businesses which can afford professionally bulit websites to get their websites built for free. The reason for this service being free is that it is for individuals who want to build their own websites on-the-go, without spending a lot (actually, without spending anything).
what's in it for me?
I added this section because if I were you, I'd probably be wondering:
"Wait, this site offers some (good 😜) software as a service, it uses only the essential cookies, it does not store any user data in its database other than email & name (optional) and it's totally free too! Am I missing out on something?"
Yeah, I understand. However, even if these do not tend to align together, they are facts and are completely true! However, there are few incentives for me too:
- It is my first proper SaaS (Software as a Service) project and I'm really happy & excited about it.
- To know that people are actually using something I've built and that it's helping people in some way makes me happy in itself! :) Trust me, it gives a distinct sense of satisfaction.
- While building this platform, I gained a lot of hands-on experience with a great deal of stuff. I got to design database models in a way which keeps things efficient and secure. I got to setup another server (this time my own 😁), which is always fun! I got to learn a lot about data and network security. And ofcourse, I got to design the frontend and develop the backend of the core platform for facilitating this service.
Finally, if you have any suggestions, feedback, website template ideas or if you find a bug, please do let me know by
filling-up the form here.
I hope you build your CookieSite soon! :)
Shivansh Rakesh