A Simple Like System for a Static Blog

I noticed my blog gets many daily visitors but very few comments. Maybe readers don't even notice the discussion section at the bottom. Or perhaps it's the friction: Giscus requires GitHub login, and writing a comment takes effort. I wanted a simpler way to get some reactions—a one-click signal that says "I liked this" without accounts or typing. A like button fits that bill. The system itself is straightforward: one like per visitor per article, stored in a database. The catch: I needed a backend, and I didn't want to spin up a separate project just for this small feature. That's when I remembered I already run a playground project with TanStack Start—a full-stack app on Cloudflare Workers. I could add the like API there. This post covers the motivation, design choices, and implementation. I use TanStack Start + Neon Postgres because that's what I have; you can use any tech stack. The ideas translate. Try the button below. It's wired to the real API for this post. Interactive or embed