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Show HN: Dropkick – a simple CMS with an HTML or Bootstrap template

37 points by latteperday 11y ago

tschuy 11y ago
Definitely thought it was called "Wordpress is overkill" for a good portion of the page. Doesn't help that that's the biggest text on the page when you first load it. Regarding the dynamic live-updating content, why? What is the use case for that? lastly, the demo site doesn't seem to even track the edit page at all. When I loaded the admin section, there was a picture, bolded text, and some text that was different from the home page.
- chunkiestbacon 11y ago
  I immediately got redirected to Wordpress.org, when I pressed demo... D:
beans1 11y ago
Reached the bottom of the page and there is Drupal's iconic droplet as the logo. It is at the start of the page too. Hopefully that doesn't last long.
- latteperday 11y ago
  Lol - yeah I wanted a dropkick silhouette - still working on that
TD-Linux 11y ago
So the premise is that I should pay money for something with less features than Wordpress?
- wingerlang 11y ago
  It's not about features, it's about the ease of setup and maintaining the pages. > If (like us) you just want a few editable pages or elements on a page for clients to edit, then here you go. Seems fair enough. To me the value is a small site where I can just do some simple stuff. Granted I have not really used WordPress, but I am just going to assume that there is /something/ to what they say - considering they base their whole product on it. (And yes I have heard that WordPress is very easy to setup)
  - latteperday 11y ago
    Yes that's right WP is easy to install too but this is for maintaining smaller sites where it will shine
    - wingerlang 11y ago
      Maybe my comment was not really clear, but I am arguing with exactly that in mind. Hence the: > To me the value is a small site where I can just do some simple stuff. Referring to "dropkick" that is
halayli 11y ago
pay more, and lose the wordpress ecosystem. How is that a good deal?
wingerlang 11y ago
I wouldn't "call out" another CMS like that on the front page. Kind of rude.
joshmn 11y ago
WP is only overkill if you don't take advantage of its ecosystem.
thekevan 11y ago
Without a free version to pique interest and start building a user base, I don't see this gaining any traction.
- latteperday 11y ago
  Any suggestions on running a free version that's downloaded? cheers
  - thekevan 11y ago
    I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. A free version of what?
sidchilling 11y ago
No free version is simply stupid.
- mrweasel 11y ago
  Please stop with the "I want a free version" crap already. It's $30, that's cheap enough that you can buy it, test it and then decide that it wasn't what you needed anyway.
  - Toenex 11y ago
    It's a barrier. From personal experience new technology adoption in a company starts with an internal evangelist. If you work in a company and need to go through a procurement process to buy something before you even get to try it, you are less likely to have a play and get hooked. In a space that is awash with at least free to try alternatives it makes it that bit harder to engage with 'that guy'. The trick is making money once the whole team is using it.
    - mrweasel 11y ago
      I don't think that companies that have a procurement process is that same company that will buy a $30 CMS. We routinely pay $20-100 for software we may never end up using. It's a small enough amount that if it pays of the saving on internal development time easily make up of the next ten small investments that didn't work out.
tmchow 11y ago
You really need a freemium model for this to gain any type of traction.
- latteperday 11y ago
  Thanks and considering :) Any advice would really appreciate it
- mrweasel 11y ago
  For $30... Really? I don't think there's anything wrong with ask people to pay upfront if you have good demos, videos and screenshots. Numbers showing that freemium increase conversion would be interesting, I just do see it being worth the hassle. Also, it's PHP, how would you avoid people just using your code and not pay? You could do a stripped down version, but that's a lot of addition work for $30... and can you strip out that much functionality from something as small as this?
ricket 11y ago
Typo: the pricing section says "Workpress"
- latteperday 11y ago
  That was on-purpose but will reconsider..
static_noise 11y ago
I really value simplicity, security and reliability and therefore use an offline generator for static HTML pages. I don't really see the use case for something in between a "fire and forget" static HTML site and a well administrated full featured Wordpress (or similar) CMS. As soon as you add PHP or other server side executable you'll need to update constantly and run into update problems.
nbevans 11y ago
WordPress is overkill it says and then in text-muted it says "REQUIRES PHP5+ AND A MYSQL DATABASE". lol?
- latteperday 11y ago
  Point taking but it's only storing text. The overkill is referring to plugins, updating, memory needed on the server, etc..
  - progx 11y ago
    Updating is necessary on any dynamic system. Your CMS will be no exception. With more or different scopes, Plugins are necessary. And yes you can implement all needed Plugins static into a CMS, but then you have to update definitely the CMS with more potential Bugs. And yes WordPress need better competitor. And yes, every PHP developer in the last 15 years build his own CMS with staic site generator, without update hassle... because they never update ;-)
PebblesHD 11y ago
We use an in-house created 'CMS' for our basic tutorials and documents in the team, and I'm pretty proud to say that it looks and behaves almost exactly like this, right down to the edit screen. Clearly not the only ones with the idea then.
- 1986v 11y ago
  Yeah, there is a $14 version of this on CodeCanyon so...good luck though!
latteperday 11y ago
Thanks for the feedback everyone. This really helps a lot. When you put things out there like this you have no idea if it makes any sense so thanks again. Wordpress is still a great solution for many projects. However, there are a lot of web designers who need to allow clients to edit only one or two pages of a site. They don't need to change the design or add new pages or anything else. That would freak them out. Plus - they work with static HTML templates like Bootstrap themes or other and don't want (can't) convert it to a WP theme. Lots of solutions for this purpose are around (CushyCMS, SurrealCMS, PageLime etc) - this is another in that vein - but there are differences to all of these. If the right project or client came up then this would work really well. Or you could roll your own with Octopress/Jekyll. cheers again
nik736 11y ago
I personally wouldn't use Dropkick, simply because you bash your "competitor" (not really since you charge 30 bucks for a simple CMS) in the first headline.
- chunkiestbacon 11y ago
  Wow, seriously? A single meal can cost 30 bucks. As a software engineer I'm offended that people don't want to pay the price of a single meal for something that provides a lot more value. I won't buy it, because I already have a good toolset, but it seems like a good solution.
  - chunkiestbacon 11y ago
    ... and also as someone who makes websites for owners of small business, having something simple is paramount. Joomla is too complicated because it does too much. Wordpress is great as blog software but not created as a cms. They need a page editor, an easy way to add something to a menu and maybe some custom dbfields like imagelists, filelist so you can output these separately in the template.
flaie 11y ago
I also like others don't think that bashing competitors is the way to go for you, whether your product is great or not. The price listed at the end of the page adds to the bad taste for me. However you may notice that your Demo page has been "hacked", in a truly great way, redirecting everyone to wordpress.org. This is a little test.  lol   <script>// <![CDATA[ window.location = 'http://wordpress.org'; // ]]></script> 
- cetra3 11y ago
 The user input is not sanitised and since it's a demo it's open for everyone to edit. I'd suggest maybe sanitising user input on the server end so that script tags don't get through.
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
 It now has an infinite loop and I can't view it at all (oh snaps Chrome). I hate to criticise but OP - isn't this pretty irresponsible?
- duiker101 11y ago
 Wow, I am at work and it just redirected me to pornhub... that is bad taste...
 - neotrinity 11y ago
 exactly... dammit...
- dimxasnewfrozen 11y ago
 "Unlike Wordpress, we allow XSS..."
- krapp 11y ago
 I guess it's a little too simple.
jmadsen 11y ago
"bashing competitors"? c'mon, folks - WP runs 40% of the friggin' web, and it's a free OS project. It isn't anyone's "competitor". WP is what most Mom & Pop shows think of when they want to make a simple website, and alternatives will continue to measure themselves against it & tell you why they fit a different niche. That's just simple marketing.
posnet 11y ago
Interesting, the demo seems to crash my version of chrome. Version 43.0.2357.124 (64-bit)
conradr 11y ago
Clicking on the Demo redirected me to a porn site pornhub?
Jhonbxl 11y ago
Clicking "try the demo" made FF 38.0.5 eat up 2.7Go RAM. Page was never able to load, process froze and I had to kill it. Not really what I call lightweight. Curious to see if this picks up, seems a bit counter-intuitive to me (if the project is so small, I'd just draft up the pages myself, why bother with a full-fledge CMS?), but there are probably people who'll like that?

37 points by latteperday 11y ago

Definitely thought it was called "Wordpress is overkill" for a good portion of the page. Doesn't help that that's the biggest text on the page when you first load it. Regarding the dynamic live-updating content, why? What is the use case for that? lastly, the demo site doesn't seem to even track the edit page at all. When I loaded the admin section, there was a picture, bolded text, and some text that was different from the home page.

chunkiestbacon 11y ago
I immediately got redirected to Wordpress.org, when I pressed demo... D:

beans1 11y ago

Reached the bottom of the page and there is Drupal's iconic droplet as the logo. It is at the start of the page too. Hopefully that doesn't last long.

latteperday 11y ago
Lol - yeah I wanted a dropkick silhouette - still working on that

TD-Linux 11y ago

So the premise is that I should pay money for something with less features than Wordpress?

wingerlang 11y ago
It's not about features, it's about the ease of setup and maintaining the pages. > If (like us) you just want a few editable pages or elements on a page for clients to edit, then here you go. Seems fair enough. To me the value is a small site where I can just do some simple stuff. Granted I have not really used WordPress, but I am just going to assume that there is /something/ to what they say - considering they base their whole product on it. (And yes I have heard that WordPress is very easy to setup)
- latteperday 11y ago
  Yes that's right WP is easy to install too but this is for maintaining smaller sites where it will shine
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    Maybe my comment was not really clear, but I am arguing with exactly that in mind. Hence the: > To me the value is a small site where I can just do some simple stuff. Referring to "dropkick" that is

halayli 11y ago

pay more, and lose the wordpress ecosystem. How is that a good deal?

wingerlang 11y ago

I wouldn't "call out" another CMS like that on the front page. Kind of rude.

joshmn 11y ago

WP is only overkill if you don't take advantage of its ecosystem.

thekevan 11y ago

Without a free version to pique interest and start building a user base, I don't see this gaining any traction.

latteperday 11y ago
Any suggestions on running a free version that's downloaded? cheers
- thekevan 11y ago
  I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. A free version of what?

sidchilling 11y ago

No free version is simply stupid.

mrweasel 11y ago
Please stop with the "I want a free version" crap already. It's $30, that's cheap enough that you can buy it, test it and then decide that it wasn't what you needed anyway.
- Toenex 11y ago
  It's a barrier. From personal experience new technology adoption in a company starts with an internal evangelist. If you work in a company and need to go through a procurement process to buy something before you even get to try it, you are less likely to have a play and get hooked. In a space that is awash with at least free to try alternatives it makes it that bit harder to engage with 'that guy'. The trick is making money once the whole team is using it.
  - mrweasel 11y ago
    I don't think that companies that have a procurement process is that same company that will buy a $30 CMS. We routinely pay $20-100 for software we may never end up using. It's a small enough amount that if it pays of the saving on internal development time easily make up of the next ten small investments that didn't work out.

tmchow 11y ago

You really need a freemium model for this to gain any type of traction.

latteperday 11y ago
Thanks and considering :) Any advice would really appreciate it
mrweasel 11y ago
For $30... Really? I don't think there's anything wrong with ask people to pay upfront if you have good demos, videos and screenshots. Numbers showing that freemium increase conversion would be interesting, I just do see it being worth the hassle. Also, it's PHP, how would you avoid people just using your code and not pay? You could do a stripped down version, but that's a lot of addition work for $30... and can you strip out that much functionality from something as small as this?

ricket 11y ago

Typo: the pricing section says "Workpress"

latteperday 11y ago
That was on-purpose but will reconsider..

static_noise 11y ago

I really value simplicity, security and reliability and therefore use an offline generator for static HTML pages. I don't really see the use case for something in between a "fire and forget" static HTML site and a well administrated full featured Wordpress (or similar) CMS. As soon as you add PHP or other server side executable you'll need to update constantly and run into update problems.

nbevans 11y ago

WordPress is overkill it says and then in text-muted it says "REQUIRES PHP5+ AND A MYSQL DATABASE". lol?

latteperday 11y ago
Point taking but it's only storing text. The overkill is referring to plugins, updating, memory needed on the server, etc..
- progx 11y ago
  Updating is necessary on any dynamic system. Your CMS will be no exception. With more or different scopes, Plugins are necessary. And yes you can implement all needed Plugins static into a CMS, but then you have to update definitely the CMS with more potential Bugs. And yes WordPress need better competitor. And yes, every PHP developer in the last 15 years build his own CMS with staic site generator, without update hassle... because they never update ;-)

PebblesHD 11y ago

We use an in-house created 'CMS' for our basic tutorials and documents in the team, and I'm pretty proud to say that it looks and behaves almost exactly like this, right down to the edit screen. Clearly not the only ones with the idea then.

1986v 11y ago
Yeah, there is a $14 version of this on CodeCanyon so...good luck though!

latteperday 11y ago

Thanks for the feedback everyone. This really helps a lot. When you put things out there like this you have no idea if it makes any sense so thanks again. Wordpress is still a great solution for many projects. However, there are a lot of web designers who need to allow clients to edit only one or two pages of a site. They don't need to change the design or add new pages or anything else. That would freak them out. Plus - they work with static HTML templates like Bootstrap themes or other and don't want (can't) convert it to a WP theme. Lots of solutions for this purpose are around (CushyCMS, SurrealCMS, PageLime etc) - this is another in that vein - but there are differences to all of these. If the right project or client came up then this would work really well. Or you could roll your own with Octopress/Jekyll. cheers again

nik736 11y ago

I personally wouldn't use Dropkick, simply because you bash your "competitor" (not really since you charge 30 bucks for a simple CMS) in the first headline.

chunkiestbacon 11y ago
Wow, seriously? A single meal can cost 30 bucks. As a software engineer I'm offended that people don't want to pay the price of a single meal for something that provides a lot more value. I won't buy it, because I already have a good toolset, but it seems like a good solution.
- chunkiestbacon 11y ago
  ... and also as someone who makes websites for owners of small business, having something simple is paramount. Joomla is too complicated because it does too much. Wordpress is great as blog software but not created as a cms. They need a page editor, an easy way to add something to a menu and maybe some custom dbfields like imagelists, filelist so you can output these separately in the template.

flaie 11y ago

I also like others don't think that bashing competitors is the way to go for you, whether your product is great or not. The price listed at the end of the page adds to the bad taste for me. However you may notice that your Demo page has been "hacked", in a truly great way, redirecting everyone to wordpress.org. This is a little test.  lol   <script>// <![CDATA[ window.location = 'http://wordpress.org'; // ]]></script>

cetra3 11y ago
The user input is not sanitised and since it's a demo it's open for everyone to edit. I'd suggest maybe sanitising user input on the server end so that script tags don't get through.
mcintyre1994 11y ago
It now has an infinite loop and I can't view it at all (oh snaps Chrome). I hate to criticise but OP - isn't this pretty irresponsible?
duiker101 11y ago
Wow, I am at work and it just redirected me to pornhub... that is bad taste...
- neotrinity 11y ago
  exactly... dammit...
dimxasnewfrozen 11y ago
"Unlike Wordpress, we allow XSS..."
krapp 11y ago
I guess it's a little too simple.

jmadsen 11y ago

"bashing competitors"? c'mon, folks - WP runs 40% of the friggin' web, and it's a free OS project. It isn't anyone's "competitor". WP is what most Mom & Pop shows think of when they want to make a simple website, and alternatives will continue to measure themselves against it & tell you why they fit a different niche. That's just simple marketing.

posnet 11y ago

Interesting, the demo seems to crash my version of chrome. Version 43.0.2357.124 (64-bit)

conradr 11y ago

Clicking on the Demo redirected me to a porn site pornhub?

Jhonbxl 11y ago

Clicking "try the demo" made FF 38.0.5 eat up 2.7Go RAM. Page was never able to load, process froze and I had to kill it. Not really what I call lightweight. Curious to see if this picks up, seems a bit counter-intuitive to me (if the project is so small, I'd just draft up the pages myself, why bother with a full-fledge CMS?), but there are probably people who'll like that?