If you’re just serving static HTML, HN should not be a problem. It’s only if you’re running code (and database queries) for every request that your server might go down in flames.
This might not work the same for a fresh port on an alternative system. For example: I have no idea how many open connections reactos could handle on the kernel-side with a standard config.
My blog was hugged once. Static webpage served with golang's net/http. Not more than 2% cpu load (single core), 20-30 requests/second. The problem was the default number of file descriptors. Once bumped that, all went well for the next few hours.