Multilingual blogging platform

Question

I've seen questions on SR.SE about blogging platforms that have features useful to programmers, but even with extensive Google-fu I'm at a loss for a blogging platform that would allow me to have multiple 'versions' of articles in different languages.

I ask this question because a cool new platform, Ghost, comes really really close to meeting all of the following specifications, with the exception of a 'multiple language toggle' and the ability to have comments on articles.

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Must have

1. Platform be hosted (I don't own any servers)
2. Articles on the blog have multiple 'versions'.
   • Articles should be able to be written in multiple languages with an easy-to-use toggle for context-switching
     OR
     have blog 'subdomains', e.g. fr.my-blog.domain; en.my-blog.domain
3. Platform should support markup
   • quoting
   • code blocks
   • straight-up HTML if possible
4. Lightweight! This is just a blog, not a web site. Support for really basic things - text, images, hyperlinks, etc. I'm not really looking for a full-blown CMS.

Like to have

1. Hosting cost < $15.00 per month (free would be great, but I wouldn't mind paying)
2. Custom domain name
3. Support for per-article commenting system
4. Programming language-specific markup (syntax highlighting)

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Now, I've already checked out Ghost, as mentioned. The only features it seems to be lacking are a native per-article commenting system and a multi-language toggle. Since I can't very well install the Ghost platform on my own server (that I don't have), I wouldn't be able to implement a 3rd-party commenting system as suggestion in this article.

Since I require hosting, modifications to the original platform will probably (but not always) be limited (as with the above Ghost example).

Is there any platform that manages to encapsulate these requirements?

Answer 1

You don't even need a blog platform for that.
Just a static site generator like Pelican or Jekyll would be sufficient, you write with a Markdown editor (I use MacDown personally), you generate the HTML files of your blog using a tool like Pelican or Jekyll, you host it for free on github pages, and then point your github page to your domain.
For example, I own the domain name moua.fr, my blog http://moua.fr is generated using Pelican, is hosted on Github page, and is available in French, English and German.
Simple, free and powerful :)