Last year, I was looking for a CMS to replace Hexo.io.
Hexo.io served me well but I was frustrated to not be able to write posts in public transports and get the correct SEO.
I wrote my quest to find the appropriate CMS that I was expecting to find, thinking since 2012, the offer may have evolved: **I have been disappointed**
This article is presenting a new solution which was recommended to me by Magnus Hillestad:
It is not an endorsed article. I think it would be interesting to share my impressions about this CMS as well.
The context
Static CMS generators are great: highly optimized pages, blazing fast.
But they have a major drawback, the editing functionality. Sure it’s fun to edit a page using your favorite editor.
But remember :
You have to set up a full CI/CD integration system between your file editor and the deployment of the site.
How will you edit the file from GIT using your phone? And then push it.
You will often write when you have spare time, anywhere and probably in BUS / METRO / TRAMWAY.
Therefore I believe Headless CMS is the new generation for CMS and I am awaiting really amazing solutions ( I have previously reviewed Directus, Ghost, CockpitCMS)
Sanity.io
Sanity.io is an open-source project backed by a company (called SANITY) and comes from Norway.
The origin of the project is a CMS / Authoring extension from a bigger project created inside the company BENGLER.
The SANITY became a spin-off project from BENGLER and soon enough reach the MVP status by hosting a famous blog.
The first public launch has been in November 2017.
Architecture
Features I am expecting
- a REST backend
- Documented RESTFul Apis
- a database driver compatible NoSQL
- a bundled Admin UI accessing by an API to the REST Backend
- a docker image or docker-compose
- possibility to add custom fields
- possibility to handle markdown format for the edition
- Cloud FS Storage for my medias
- Optimized solution: I don’t want a new WordPress installation
- Node.JS solution: I want a lightweight solution
- Self-hosted solution: I want to deploy it on Google Cloud.
How to Install :
According to the site, you are starting with the command :
npm install -g @sanity/cli && san
The NPM Installer is requiring you to create an account on Sanity.io using Github or Google.
I picked Github:
On my first attempt, I wasn’t lucky and the Github authentication failed.!
Links
- https://gitter.im/sanity-io/sanity
- https://github.com/sanity-io/sanity
- https://hackernoon.com/headless-in-love-with-sanity-689960571dc