I felt like there was a use-case that was currently missing in Jekyll which is paid subscriber-only content. You can certainly use other software like Substack, Ghost and good old WordPress but you lose the simplicity and customizability we’re used to when using Jekyll.
Subscriber-Only – in my 100% impartial opinion – is a good alternative to the mentioned platforms. You get to keep using Jekyll and, with a gem and a couple of lines of YAML – you’ll get subscriptions, subscription management, payment processing, access controls and all other needed machinery needed to host memberships on your site.
I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Do check it out and let me know what you think!
PS: I read the guidelines and couldn’t find anything on self-promotion. Do let me know if I glanced something over and I’ll remove the post, if needed
Not yet but it’s on the roadmap. The plan is to start with just a listing of all your subscribers. Is there a particular feature you’d consider a must-have, on this page?
If you happen to be confronted with the paywall while already being subscribed – maybe because you decided to log out of Subscriber Only, at some point – there will be a “Sign In” button on the paywall and it’s just a matter of logging in with your email and password, once again.
Hopefully, the Cookie Policy page has the information you need.
I am unsure what exactly I am thinking about a subscriber management panel. I wondered if there was a way to easily extract the data for mailing lists and create users for a free tier (friends, family, co-workers, etc.).
For the login, I would assume there is some URL you can send people so they can log in, recover their password, or reset it.
Thank you for the cookie policy. It looks reasonable.
I do not require this functionality at the moment, but it is something I have been investigating, and your solution looks much better than most.
The gem adds a tiny script to the <head> of the page with gated content. This scripts handles showing the paywall and authentication – namely, the cookie management you mentioned. It’s pretty unobtrusive.
From what I understand from reading the plugin’s code, the “gated” posts are uploaded to your server, which handles authentication and access control, and the pages include a piece of JS to retrieve the posts from your server.
This raises questions about the lack of an explicit moderation policy or terms of use, since you’re effectively hosting the content.
The Terms & Conditions are something we’re still working on. The gist of it is that whatever you upload to Subscriber Only is yours and protected by copyright and any other applicable intellectual property laws. You grant Subscriber Only a royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to distribute posts to your subscribers – just a license, no changes to ownership. To prevent abuse, we reserve the right to delete your posts from our storage at our sole discretion.
I certainly hope we’ll have to write up a moderation policy, at some point, but, for now, our scale doesn’t warrant it.
Does this address your questions or is there any particular point in the terms you’d like to be addressed? Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!
and a couple of lines of YAML – you’ll get subscriptions, subscription management, payment processing, access controls and all other needed machinery needed to host memberships on your site.