Individuals: start here
This section is for people who build and run a website on their own: a personal home page, a portfolio of photographs or drawings, a blog, a private site for a family, or the site of a club or a small hobby group. You probably do most of the work yourself, in the evenings, on a small budget, and you want a site that keeps working without constant attention.
Every page is written for one person doing the work. Where a task needs a developer, a hosting company or a partner, the page says so plainly, and where a feature does not exist, it says that too.
Note
Every feature named in this section was checked against the Exponential repository: the code, the settings, the
root composer.json and the existing documentation, which each page links. The section names no customers, quotes
no statistics and gives no prices of its own.
Contents
- Exponential for one person
- Find your kind of site
- Setting it up
- Running it alone
- What Exponential does not do for you
- A first weekend
- Other sections of this help
Exponential for one person
Exponential is a content management system: you describe your content once (a blog post has a title, a body, a date and tags; a photograph has a caption and an image) and the system stores, lists, searches and publishes it. Most of what one person needs ships with it:
| You want | What Exponential has | Where it is explained |
|---|---|---|
| A site you can update from any browser | The administration interface and the editor | Getting started, Editing content |
| A blog | Blog and Blog post classes, with optional comments | Blogs |
| A photo or art portfolio | Gallery and Image classes, image variations, an image editor (ezie) | Portfolios |
| Feeds readers can follow | RSS and Atom exports, built in | RSS feeds for your blog |
| A private area for family or members | Sections and roles | Private areas |
| Members who sign up themselves | User registration with activation by mail | Members and registration |
| A newsletter for a club | The cjw_newsletter extension | Club newsletters |
| No database server to look after | SQLite 3, the default database | Running on a small budget |
| A safer sign-in | Two-step sign-in (sevenx_authentication_2fa) | Two-factor sign-in |
| Help with a first draft | Exponential Intelligence (expai), drafts only, with a provider key you bring | The writing assistant |
The software is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or later: there is no license fee (Licensing for buyers).
Find your kind of site
| You want to run | Start with |
|---|---|
| A personal home page: who you are, what you do, how to reach you | Personal sites |
| A portfolio of photographs, drawings or other work | Portfolios |
| A blog, alone or with a friend | Blogs |
| A site only your family can see | Family sites |
| The site of a club, a team or a hobby group | Club sites |
| Something else, or you are not sure Exponential fits | Is Exponential right for you? |
A registered charity or association with staff may find Non-profits closer to its needs, and a shop or a trade belongs in Local businesses. If you are not used to technical words at all, read Non-technical people alongside this section.
Setting it up
The Setup pages walk through the decisions in order:
- Choosing an install method: the browser wizard, the console install or the kickstarter.
- Choosing a site package and theme: what the shipped packages and themes give you.
- Running on a small budget: SQLite, one small server, few moving parts.
- Shared hosting or a small server: what works where, and why Velocity needs a server of your own.
- Domain names and HTTPS: what you arrange outside Exponential.
Running it alone
The Running it pages cover the small routines that keep a one-person site healthy: backups, updates, two-factor sign-in, spam and security basics, the writing assistant, when to hire help and learning with the Student partner level.
The checklists turn them into lists you can print: a launch checklist, a monthly upkeep list, a family privacy checklist and a site plan worksheet.
What Exponential does not do for you
Some things are outside the software. Knowing them early saves a weekend:
- Domain names and DNS are bought from a registrar and pointed at your server; Exponential cannot register a domain (Domain names and HTTPS).
- There is no one-click importer from another blog platform; moving content is a small project (Moving from another blog platform).
- Comments come from the shipped Comment class, not from a separate comment system; there is no
ezcommentsextension in this distribution (Comments on your blog). - The
birthdayextension stores dates of birth; it sends no reminders (Birthdays and family dates). - Mail must leave your server for registration, password resets and newsletters; that is a hosting matter.
The full list is on What exists and what does not.
A first weekend
| When | Do | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Friday evening | Write down what the site is for, who reads it and what must stay private | Site plan worksheet |
| Saturday morning | Install Exponential on your own computer with SQLite and look around | Choosing an install method, Admin tour |
| Saturday afternoon | Create your first pages and pictures; try the editor | Editing content, A personal site in a weekend |
| Sunday morning | Decide where the site will live and what it costs | Running on a small budget |
| Sunday afternoon | Turn on two-step sign-in and take a first backup | Two-factor sign-in, Backups for one person |
The full order of reading is the reading path. Short answers are in the FAQ and the words are explained in the glossary.
Other sections of this help
| Section | For |
|---|---|
| Website creators | The detailed building pages this section links to |
| Customers | Owners of a site someone else built and runs |
| Blogs (customers) | The owner's view of a blog |
| Non-profits | Charities and associations |
| Local businesses | Shops, trades and services |
| Non-technical people | Plain-language help for everyone |
Related pages
- Individuals reading path
- Is Exponential right for you?
- What exists and what does not
- Website creators: start here
- Customers: start here
- Free documentation: this page is free to copy, translate and improve under the GNU FDL 1.3.
Become an Exponential Partner
Partners share their information, provide funding, contribute back and develop the products with us, and that is how Exponential grows. A partner website and dashboard are planned for mid-2027: please become a partner today to speed up our growth rate and land new features faster.