This could be an unpopular opinion here at HN so getting ready for the downvotes.
IMO, the fastest way to set up a blog is using WordPress. You could be up and running in less than 2 minutes on WordPress.com. Takes a bit longer for self hosted blog.
I second Wordpress. It is easy, default themes look nice. You can do anything with a bit of customization and even download hundreds of thousands of premade themes inexpensively.
Especially this if you want to brand it yourself with your own domain and care at all about SEO.
I personally use Laravel Forge which in addition to its main use case of Laravel server management, give me one-click Wordpress installs on my AWS EC2 servers. And then route53 for the domains.
You could also easily launch a Wordpress server with AWS Lightsail and you do not need a very powerful server unless you become really popular. And even then there are pretty good free caching plugins, some installed by default.
Ghost - If you are really serious about writing and monetizing it. Not useful if you are not earning from your writing
Medium - If you are gonna write once in a year. or. you are happy putting your articles behind their paywall
dev.to - If you don't have a niche, just writing for the community whenever you feel
hashnode - If you prefer having custom domain, writing for beginners, love SEO, want to build personal brand, and a bit serious about technical writing.
SSG + Github Page - If you love getting your hands dirty in coding & willing to spend sometime to learn a new tech. (plus point, you have full freedom to design it in your own way)
IMO, the fastest way to set up a blog is using WordPress. You could be up and running in less than 2 minutes on WordPress.com. Takes a bit longer for self hosted blog.