@Reply #1 - good point! Python is definitely the way to go. I remember when I built a custom support bot for my buddy's store last year. I wanted to keep the budget at absolute zero, and I was so satisfied with how easy it was to do without spending a dime. Here is how I did it:

• Used Google Colab for writing and testing the code for free
• Leveraged the free tier of the Cohere API instead of paying for OpenAI
• Hosted the prototype on Hugging Face Spaces for free I coded the whole thing on a cheap Lenovo IdeaPad 3 15ITL6 Intel Core i3 8GB and it ran perfectly. If you want a web UI without learning JS, check out Streamlit. It works well and saved me weeks of frontend work.

I would suggest Python for sure, but since it's for a website, JS is also an option.

• Python: Super easy to learn, especially if you connect it to the OpenAI API GPT-4o.
• JavaScript: Great for web integration, but be careful because AI libraries aren't as beginner friendly. Honestly, go with Python.

Jumping in here because honestly, I am in the exact same boat with a side project I'm trying to launch. It is such a headache trying to figure out which path to take when you're just starting out, and I've been spinning my wheels on the same stuff for weeks now. Over the years, I've tried many different setups, but here are a few things I rely on for stability:

• Any reliable cloud provider for basic hosting
• Lightweight development environments from Microsoft
• Documentation from established tech foundations I really feel your struggle with the learning curve, especially wanting to get something live for your aunt's site. I keep telling myself to just stick to one stack and stop overthinking it. Let me know how the progress goes, because I'm basically stuck in the same loop of trying to get things off the ground.

Great info, saved!