Lightweight CMS

Lightweight CMS is a dual-mode, flat-file CMS powered by PHP. It supports both static and dynamic rendering, giving developers full control over content, layout, and deployment.

Features

• Cross-platform
• Uses vanilla PHP as both core logic and templating language — familiar to most web developers
• Toggle between static site generation and dynamic PHP-powered website
• Multilingual site support
• Write content in Markdown, AsciiDoc, reStructuredText, or plain HTML
• Write dynamic pages in PHP
• Draft post support
• Nested sections
• Breadcrumb navigation
• Pagination
• Table of Contents
• Interlinked tags
• Image lazy loading
• SEO-friendly (disables external link following)
• Sitemap and RSS feed generators
• Progressive Web App support
• Asset compilation, live watching, and hot reload

Quick Start

Windows

choco install php --version=8.1.21
choco install composer
choco install nodejs --version=18.17.0
choco install rsync
choco install sed

git clone https://github.com/cwchentw/lightweight-cms.git mysite
cd mysite
git checkout master
./tools/bin/serve.bat

macOS

brew install php@8.1
brew install composer
brew install node@18

git clone https://github.com/cwchentw/lightweight-cms.git mysite
cd mysite
git checkout master
./tools/bin/serve

Ubuntu

sudo apt install php php-xml php-mbstring php-zip unzip

curl -o composer-setup.php https://getcomposer.org/installer
php composer-setup.php --install-dir=$HOME/bin --filename=composer

# Install Node.js via nvm
nvm install 18.17.0
nvm use 18.17.0

git clone https://github.com/cwchentw/lightweight-cms.git mysite
cd mysite
git checkout master
./tools/bin/serve

Why Not Use Another Static Site Generator?

There are already many static site generators — but this CMS bridges a unique gap:

• Full flat-file content management, without a database
• Uses PHP as both logic and template language — no DSL to learn
• Seamlessly switches between static and dynamic modes
• Ideal for hybrid content sites (e.g., documentation + light app features)

It started from Hugo-inspired concepts and evolved into a pragmatic platform for developers who prefer writing in familiar tools.

System Requirements

Back End

• PHP 8.0 or 8.1 (CLI and web server)
• GNU/Linux recommended (macOS/Windows supported)
• Composer
• Optional: AsciiDoctor (AsciiDoc), Docutils + Pygments (reStructuredText), Perl (replacement)

Front End

• Node.js 18.x
• Gulp, Sass, Babel, Autoprefixer, stylelint, Flow
• Normalize.css, Bootstrap 5, Bootstrap.Native
• Optional: highlight.js

(Dependencies are theme-based; the default and multilingual themes require the above.)

Builtin Themes

• default: documentation layout
• multilingual: documentation with i18n
• blog: blog-style layout

Set SITE_STYLE in config/optionalFeatures.php to blog or documentation.

Deployment

To deploy your CMS:

./tools/bin/sync-to /path/to/www

Set up web server configs accordingly (see /tools/etc/nginx.conf for sample).

Want to Contribute or Learn More?

This project is lightly maintained, but real-world ready. Clone, experiment, and adapt as needed. Questions and discussions welcome via GitHub Issues.

License

MIT License © 2023 ByteBard