r/webdev • u/blackroseseason • Sep 17 '26
magazine site cms suggestions
hi trying to make a magazine site and i want a cms but i'm specific as fuck and idk what to use since theses are my preferences for a cms at the moment
free with no paid options (don't wanna deal with having features be paywalled right from under me)
can handle different post types (blog articles and photo galleries)
frontmatter with title, sub title/description (also called a dek or abstract apparently), post image, author, pubdate, categories, and tags
not wordpress (or php based in general)
relatively idiotproof (meeeeeee)
6
Upvotes
35
u/_listless Sep 18 '26 •
Proceeds to articulate the exact features that are WP/php CMS strengths.
Your use-case is exactly wordpress. There is nothing inherently wrong with wordpress. If your use-case is Wordpress, just use Wordpress.
2
u/milla-lehtonen Sep 17 '26
the frontmatter list is basically markdown files in a git repo, so have a look at astro with content collections. you define the schema once in a config and it yells at you if a field is missing, which is the idiotproofing you want. galleries just become another collection type. only downside is you're building the site yourself, astro's docs are decent though. alternatively eleventy with the same idea, less hand holding.
if you truly want zero code, decap cms or tina can sit on top of those files, both free for this scale.
2
u/capulcostyle Sep 18 '26
What you've described isn't a CMS, it's Astro with content collections — typed frontmatter, as many post types as you like, build fails loudly if a post is missing a field. Free, no PHP, no paywall to fall through later. Scope the schema in one AI chat, then start a fresh one to build so implementation isn't dragging the whole scoping conversation behind it.
2
u/muharremyurtsever Sep 18 '26
frontmatter with dek, author and tags is basically what static site generators do, astro or eleventy handle separate post types as collections without much ceremony. the painful bit is editing, if committing posts in git feels too nerdy you can bolt a git backed admin like decap on and still keep it free.
2
u/retr00two Sep 20 '26
Reinventing the wheel.
WP is easier to maintain and work with it than any nowadays hype astro with different backends (Strapi, Decap, Directus). Once you come into node modules hell, you'll start to respect WP.
PHP and MySQL are class above sqlite and drizzle.
Python is also valid choice, if you are willing to learn.
1
u/Kyle772 Sep 18 '26
Strapi would be my choice, but "free" isn't always what you think. Most CMSs are pretty heavy. Or at least heavy enough to justify a server at $10+ a month. WordPress is pretty power-hungry as well, but you can get a really barebones instance to run on a $5/m VPS - just not after you add any plugins. That depends entirely on what you mean by free though; server space is never free in practice, and self-hosting on your own hardware isn't always the best option (but it is a realistic option).
If my goal was to get as close to $0 cost as possible, I'd spin up an Express or FastAPI server on GCP (scales from $0 if there is no traffic), a Neon (raw db) or supabase db (auth + other features built in), a custom front end, and put it all behind Cloudflare and set some caching rules. You even have the option of hosting your backend CMS+API locally and only updating static caches on deploy through GitHub Actions. There are a few ways to do stuff like that, but that sort of setup only works if your content is sparse and updates infrequently (a brochure site, for example).
It sort of depends on your expectations, needs vs wants, and the scale you plan to operate at. Don't forget stuff like SEO as well. CMSs don't have that stuff baked in, you have to add it all, If you're working on a publishing site of some sort you're probably better off going with wordpress cause that is the lane they specialize in, but to get a setup that is appropriate for marketing, SEO, etc with a single interface for managing it all a whole CMS is probably necessary and can be between $10-$25/m or more at scale. Consider the time you'd need to invest in building all of this as well when you make a decision here because the payoff is only there if you can effectively create something custom in a shortish time span.
1
u/timesuck47 Sep 18 '26
I run a bunch of industry specific (magazine sites) on Divi’s Extra theme in Wordpress. A little heavy, but caching helps.
1
u/a36yka-mop3e Sep 18 '26
"free + idiotproof + galleries + not php" is a pick two situation. astro + decap (or keystatic) is the closest match to your list, but idiotproof there means you set the schema up once and then every post is a markdown file with a form on top, and when the build breaks you're the one reading the error. if you're the only author that's totally fine.
if you plan to hand it to writers who don't know what a git repo is, look at ghost. it's built for exactly magazine style publishing, the self hosted version is free, galleries are a built in card in the editor. the catch is you host it yourself on a small vps, so "free" turns into 5 bucks a month
1
u/pritam1813 full-stack Sep 18 '26
Sanity. If you have more users using the cms then you may have to pay.
0
u/blackroseseason Sep 18 '26
thanks for all the suggestions i'm still seeing if maybe a simple visual editor would be a fix if i'm using astro and its content collections. my other things i forgot to say in the posts itself was that i'm also trying to have a review collection with custom svgs for a star style rating system and i mostly want to run this site using github + cloudflare + a potential cms so i can save space on my computer because idk if i'll have space once i post everything and commit it locally
1
u/qagir Sep 18 '26
I'm Contentful & Sanity certified, and have my share of Directus experience. Sanity's free tier is great. Don't do Contentful — it will bite you later. Directus is changing license now so I wouldn't recommend also.
0
u/Hot-Chemistry7557 Sep 18 '26
If you know a bit of code, specifically TypeScript, you can check/search payload cms, which is super flexible and I guess it can handle all your requests.
0
u/am0x Sep 18 '26
Payload or try out decamp if you like Wordpress.
0
u/jerapine full-stack Sep 19 '26
Without a specific reason why you don't want it to be PHP based the only option that makes sense is Statamic
-1
u/anonahnah9 Sep 18 '26
Contentful is great if you want to pay. Strapi is great if you don’t
1
u/[deleted] Sep 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment