I use gitlab pages which lets you use any static site generator (not just jekyll) and is otherwise just as good as github pages. I use hugo for ahelwer.ca although I really should get around to putting effort into learning/customizing the site instead of using the default gitlab theme.

I believe GitHub pages is getting close to allowing any SSG to be used via GitHub actions. https://github.blog/changelog/2021-12-16-github-pages-using-...

Yes but GitHub is “another garden”, surely is way more open than Medium but you still have to rely on other resources (Microsoft), you are not the true owner of your content.

Instead, using my own VPS I can have the full control on my blog (yeah there are still the laws obviously).

Anyway Jekyll has some limitations with GitHub, but is a lot easier to setup, especially for the comments and builds.

Given that you have all your content locally and can push whatever you want as long as it's static, it seems like the only part you "don't own" is the maintenance.

Not quite. If you write something that violates the TOS of GitHub your content can be removed, also if someone flags you for some reason.

You rely always on a third party service.

GitHub pages with a custom domain? And then if you do run afoul of GitHub you could move your Jekyll site to somewhere else.

Until then, you've got hosting and maintenance handled by someone else.

Sorry, yes, this is mostly what I meant. If you have your own domain you can pretty easily just move things around.