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A static site generator like Jekyll or Hugo paired with a CMS-as-a-service like Forestry or Contentful makes for a fast, no maintenance Wordpress alternative.
by mattkevan 9y ago
A static site generator like Jekyll or Hugo paired with a CMS-as-a-service like Forestry or Contentful makes for a fast, no maintenance Wordpress alternative.
And with a host like Surge or Netlify you can run an entire site for just the cost of a domain name.
- indigodaddy 9y agoAnd Netlify also offers Netlify CMS, which can accomplish the web-based composing urge.
- jonathonf 9y agoThat doesn't really answer the question - no static site generator {that I know of} is WYSIWYG in the same way as Wordpress. Yes, you can train people how to use a generator, but compared to a dynamic CMS they have a _much_ steeper learning curve {based on my experience training people about web publishing}. The closest I've seen is using Sandstorm with their static Wordpress site publishing but it's still nowhere near as smooth as plain Wordpress. (Edit: let's add some qualification because downvoting)
- indigodaddy 9y agoSandstorm also has a static producing Ghost instance, which is pretty decent, yet very dated in it's version.
- kot-behemoth 9y agoLektor (https://www.getlektor.com https://www.getlektor.com) is a static site generator with a simple admin interface (with WYSIWYG editor for markdown) which can be run locally. Publishing can also be done via a button in the UI. For even more user-friendliness, the site can be stored in Dropbox, so the user doesn't even need to know git.
- mattkevan 9y agoThe static generator is completely hidden to the end user. They log in, click add new post, add some text, style it in Markdown or HTML, upload a few images, add a few tags and click publish. Forestry commits the changes and Netlify runs a build. All the user sees of this is that their new post is now published. When I first started using static sites I would have agreed with you: there's no way I'd hand a normal user a markdown editor and a git repo and expect them to get on with it. But these new services do, in my opinion, solve the experience problem. However Wordpress is really good if you want to leverage the module ecosystem and do more complex stuff further down the line. Having used Wordpress for years I get excited about static sites' speed, simplicity and lack of constant security updates but it's not a one size fits all situation.
- perryprog 9y agoWhat's the difference of Forestry and Contentful? I've heard good things about Contentful, but I haven't heard of Forestry.
- jeremya 9y agoI've not used either, but Forestry seems like a CMS-to-static-pages tool while Contentful is a CMS-to-API tool.
- sgallant 9y agoCo-founder of https://forestry.io https://forestry.io here. Forestry.io is a Git-based CMS that commits content changes to your repo (and optionally builds/deploys your site). Contentful is an API-based CMS, that stores your content and requires you to query their API during/after build time.
- angeloashmore 9y agoIs your service coupled with Hugo?
- sgallant 9y agoNot sure what you mean by "coupled", but we support both Hugo and Jekyll sites.
- angeloashmore 9y agoAh, sorry, thought it was something more like Contentful that provides an API.
- perryprog 9y agoOh, ok that makes sense. So you would use Forestry if you're hosting static HTML from CMS, and Contentful for when you need an API for the CMS. (disclamer: I've never used CMS before so I don't really know how it works)
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]