What is the best static site generator for an inexeperienced sysadmin?

I previously tried (and struggled) to stand up a Jeckyl site for a domain I bought.

I've had bad experiences with Wordpress, and don't want to continuously be patching, a static site will have less attack surface and it'll be a learning opportunity.

I want to use a static site to ensure folk browsing over Tor with the safety slider at the highest setting can read... as well as for economic reasons: less $ to pay for the hosting if I get Slashdotted - blog which is purely plain text will not generate as high of server bills. Also, I just plain like the simpler designs of the late 90s and early 2000s. Finally, I'm an environmentalist... I don't think it's ethical to use a bunch of unnecessary web two point oh BS when a clean design similar to HN will work just fine and require less resources.

On my end, I initially trained as a UX researcher -- my bachelor's is in Information Science, with "related areas" in Psychology and English literature due to some local politics I'll skip over in favor of focusing on the technicals, but at my heart I'm a phone phreak turned hacker who was raised by the internet during that liminal period in the 2000s where everyone and their brother had a VBulletin they hung out on. (Gonna respect people's privacy and not name the one I learned on)

I still regret not doing an MFA in Creative Nonfiction instead of wasting my 20s on civil society, and it's reflected in my posting style -- sorry for being so... loquacious.

Based on the above context, what do people suggest for someone looking to make a static site to publish the tools and techniques developed over their hacker journey?

Thanks in advance for suggestions on tools, technologies, and hosting providers. (Currently leaning towards Digital Ocean on the last one, but open to suggestions!)