It is almost 2026. Why still make a personal website?
With AI drastically lowering the barrier to building sites, personal websites are no longer just for developers. I built mine with Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1 via vibe coding for three reasons: who really owns my data, is it possible to build a knowledge archive, and whether I can avoid being constrained by platform formats.
Honestly, if this were a few years ago, I probably would not bother building a personal website. Not because I did not want to, but because it requires a certain level of coding skills.
But in the last couple of years, AI has made it very clear: even people who do not code can turn an idea into a real product, rather than staying in their heads.
This is the personal site I built through vibe coding with Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.1: www.zillionvisionary.com
I built this site mainly for three reasons:
Who owns the data/notes/resources?
Platforms are convenient, but they feel more like rented apartments.
The notes I write, the resources I organize, the project retrospectives I do - I do not want them to live only inside some app.
I want a place where:
- I can design my own structure (directories, indexes, collections)
- I can back up, migrate, and export easily
- I can decide how data is processed and preserved long term
In short, keeping my primary archive in my own hands gives me peace of mind.
From "feeds" to "knowledge/work archives"
Platforms are great as an entry point, but their structure is fundamentally a timeline.
A lot of my work is not necessarily time-bound:
resources, portfolios, and project retrospectives get updated over time and need to be organized and cross-linked.
I need a place to accumulate into a long-term knowledge base or portfolio, rather than fragments scattered across a feed.
Not being constrained by platform formats
On platforms, expression tends to be compressed into a few fixed forms: notes, videos, or image posts.
But sometimes what I want to share is not just "content," but the thing itself:
files, templates, downloadable resource packs, a small demo, an interactive page, or a project collection.
These are either inconvenient or simply unsupported on most platforms.
A website, for me, is a canvas - I can design, present, and combine things however I want.
So this is my site:
a digital garden that I can design and update as I like.
If you have similar thoughts, give vibe coding a try and let different AI tools help you build your own digital garden.