Self-Hosted CMS Options & Landscape

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Self-Hosted CMS Options & Landscape#

What Was Established#

User seeks a self-hosted CMS for an Ubuntu VM, explicitly rejecting WordPress due to business practices.
Preference for tools respected by the web development and self-hosting communities.
Exploration of CMS categories: Monolithic, Flat-file, Static Site Generators (SSG), Headless CMS, and Custom.

Key Decisions#

Rejected WordPress: Cited business practices as a dealbreaker.
Favoring Developer-Respected Alternatives: Leaned towards headless or modern flat-file CMS options.
Top Contenders Identified: Directus (Headless), Strapi (Headless), Kirby (Flat-file), Payload CMS (Headless/TS), Ghost (Blogging).

CMS Landscape & Options#

Monolithic CMS#

WordPress: Dominant (60% market), huge ecosystem, but rejected by user.
Drupal: Flexible, steep learning curve.
Joomla: Balanced ease/power, smaller community.

Flat-file CMS (No Database)#

Grav: Fast, simple, file-based.
Kirby: Beautiful UI, file-based, commercial license (~$129), highly respected by designers/devs.

Static Site Generators (SSG)#

Jekyll: GitHub Pages compatible.
Hugo: Blazing fast, Go-based.
Eleventy: Flexible, JS-based.
Next.js: React-based, hybrid.

Headless CMS (API-Driven)#

Directus: Community favorite. Node.js/Vue.js. Provides REST/GraphQL APIs, beautiful admin UI. Excellent for full frontend control.
Strapi: Most popular headless. Node.js/React. Strong plugin ecosystem.
Payload CMS: Rising star. TypeScript-first, excellent DX.
Ghost: Primarily for blogging/publishing. Markdown-native.
Contentful/Sanity: Enterprise/Developer friendly, but often cloud-hosted (though self-hostable options exist).

Custom / Build-Your-Own#

The Guardian’s “Composer”: Fully custom-built in Scala/Play Framework. Not recommended for small projects.
Server-Side: PHP includes, Python (Django/Flask), Node.js (Express).

Recommended Stack for Ubuntu#

For Maximum Control & Flexibility: Directus or Payload CMS.
For Content-Focused Sites: Kirby or Statamic.
For API-Driven Projects: Strapi.

Quick Start (Directus on Ubuntu):

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_18.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
npm create directus-project@latest my-cms
cd my-cms
npm install
npx directus start

Historical Notes#

Conversation date: 2025-11-17.
User explicitly stated a preference against WordPress due to business practices.
Focus remains on self-hosted, developer-respected tools.
Note: Directus and Strapi have evolved significantly since late 2025; verify current self-hosting requirements, licensing, and Docker compatibility for homelab deployment.

Hugo-Specific Configuration#

Project Structure#

myblog/
├── config.toml   -- Main configuration (baseURL, languageCode, title, theme)
├── content/      -- Blog posts in Markdown
├── themes/       -- Installed themes (git submodules)
├── static/       -- Static assets (images, JS, CSS)
└── public/       -- Generated static files (deployed to Nginx)

Key config.toml Settings#

baseURL — Domain URL (e.g., https://blog.nbkelley.com)
theme — Must match theme folder name in themes/
buildDrafts — true during development, false for production
paginate — Posts per page

Creating Posts#

hugo new posts/my-post.md  # Draft in content/posts/
hugo -D                     # Build including drafts
hugo                        # Production build to public/

Deployment Options#

Manual rsync: rsync -avz --delete public/ user@server:/var/www/html/blog
Git webhook: Server-side script that git pull && hugo && cp -r public /var/www/html/blog on push
Cloudflare Pages: Push Hugo source to GitHub, Cloudflare builds and deploys automatically

Comments for Static Sites#

Utterances — GitHub issues-based, no backend
Disqus — Traditional, JS-based
Hyvor Talk — Self-hostable alternative

Sources#

ingested/chats/106-Beginner Guide to Building Websites with Ubuntu.md
ingested/chats/036-Setting Up Self-Hosted Blogs with Nginx.md
DeepSeek conversation: “Self-Hosted Websites on Ubuntu Server” (historical)
DeepSeek conversation: “Setting Up Self-Hosted Blogs with Nginx” (chat 036)

Kirby on homelab

Self-Hosted CMS Options & Landscape

Self-Hosted CMS Options & Landscape#

What Was Established#

Key Decisions#

CMS Landscape & Options#

Monolithic CMS#

Flat-file CMS (No Database)#

Static Site Generators (SSG)#

Headless CMS (API-Driven)#

Custom / Build-Your-Own#

Recommended Stack for Ubuntu#

Historical Notes#

Hugo-Specific Configuration#

Project Structure#

Key config.toml Settings#

Creating Posts#

Deployment Options#

Comments for Static Sites#

Related Pages#

Sources#