Project tutorial
Build a Ktor Blog
Build Baltic Post with Ktor, FreeMarker, Simple.css, Exposed, sessions, owned post CRUD, search, password recovery, and a Railway deployment.
How this project works
Baltic Post is an original teaching blog in twelve complete snapshots. Clone once and run any numbered folder without rebuilding earlier stages.
The path starts with Ktor and routing, adds FreeMarker and Simple.css, then introduces isolated Postgres databases. Later parts add sessions, media, ownership, pagination, search, reset tokens, and Railway deploy notes.
Snapshots 4–12 seed [email protected] and [email protected] with password123.
Local Postgres runs through Docker Compose on host port 5439 with databases baltic_01–baltic_12.
Start with part 1 Open GitHub repo
Parts in order
Work through the parts in sequence. Each lesson explains the ideas in plain language, then points you to a complete runnable snapshot on GitHub for that stage.
- Part 1: Getting StartedCreate a minimal Ktor app on port 8090.
- Part 2: RoutingOrganize page routes with the Ktor routing DSL.
- Part 3: Layout and UIRender FreeMarker pages with Simple.css.
- Part 4: Data LayerPersist authors and posts with Exposed and PostgreSQL.
- Part 5: Feed and DetailBuild a database-backed feed and post detail pages.
- Part 6: RegistrationValidate accounts and store bcrypt password hashes.
- Part 7: Login and SessionsAuthenticate with signed session cookies.
- Part 8: Profiles and MediaShow author profiles and accept constrained avatar uploads.
- Part 9: Posts CRUD and OwnershipCreate, edit, and delete posts with owner authorization.
- Part 10: Pagination and SearchPaginate the feed and search post text.
- Part 11: Password ResetIssue expiring one-use password reset tokens.
- Part 12: DeployPrepare Baltic Post for Railway and managed Postgres.