Content management systems
Static site generators
Eleventy
- Website: 11ty.dev
- GitHub: 11ty/eleventy
A simpler static site generator. An alternative to Jekyll. Transforms a directory of templates (of varying types) into HTML.
Astro
- Website: astro.build
- GitHub: withastro/astro
Build faster websites with Astro's next-gen island architecture.
See also: Next.js for React, SvelteKit for Svelte.
Tools for SSGs
Visual editors for static site generators provide the interface for editing and creating content based on blueprints. Some good choices are Tina (formerly Forestry) and Decap (formerly Netlify CMS).
Search engines such as Pagefind work by creating a static index of the website content at build-time.
Content management systems
WordPress
- Website: wordpress.org
- Pricing: WordPress itself is free and open source. Many plugins are free, but some require yearly subscriptions to keep updated.
WordPress is at its core a blog engine, and several CMS features are absent from a vanilla installation. Some essential plugins:
- Timber lets you write templates with the Twig templating language.
- Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) provides an interface for managing posts’ custom fields.
- WPML for building multilingual websites.
The Block Editor brings page building functionality to the core, eliminating the need for dedicated plugins.
Content types, called Custom Post Types or CPT for short, are managed through code in either the theme or (ideally) in a plugin. Starting with version 6.1, ACF also has the ability to manage CPTs within the WordPress dashboard.
Because it’s used by a significant portion of websites today, WordPress and its plugin ecosystem are attractive targets. It’s sensible to keep plugin use minimal, and to update the core and plugins regularly, along with general security hygiene. Wordfence’s free version offers a firewall and a malware scanner.
Check out Lathe, a Timber-based WordPress starter theme I wrote and use in all my WordPress projects.
Kirby CMS
- Website: getkirby.com
- Pricing: Free for evaluation purposes; one time purchase per site, including updates; reduced fee for major version bumps.
Kirby supports custom fields and multilingual websites natively.
Read more: Notes on Kirby CMS.
Craft CMS
- Website: craftcms.com
- Pricing: Free for personal use; one time purchase per site for professional use, includes one year of updates, with smaller fees for additional years of updates.