Grav Alternatives for Self-Hosted

Are you tiered of the complexity when it comes to setting up a website? A static site generator like Plenti might be your solution. Plenti is a static site generator written in Go for speed and utilize Svelte for ease of use on the frontend. With Plenti, you can ditch the headaces of maintaing a content management system and SQL databases. Plenti simply connects to your Git backend and be pushed to production using GitHub Action or Gitlab Pipelines.

Hugo is one of the most popular open-source static site generators. With its amazing speed and flexibility, Hugo makes building websites fun again. Hugo is the fastest tool of its kind, it generates pages at <1 ms per page, the average site builds in less than a second. Hugo also supports unlimited content types, taxonomies, menus, dynamic API-driven content, and more, all without plugins. Hugo is written in Go and released fully free and open-source under the Apache-2.0 License.

Kirby is a flat file content management system written in PHP. Kirby adapts to any project and can be used by developers, designers, creators and clients to create websites for businesses and personal use.

Batflat is fast, database-less CMS written in PHP. Batflat weighs in on 1024 kilobytes and it has all features you have come to enjoy from other content management systems like WordPress. You can also download or create your own extensions for Batflat, allowing you to build features on top of the core and create unique experiences for the end-user.

WonderCMS is the smallest flat file content management system. The CMS is built with PHP and has been developed since 2008. No initial configuration required to setup the WonderCMS, the installation is straight forward and simply requires you to unzip and upload 5 files.All data within WonderCMS is structured as JSON format and the flat file nature of the content management system also allow you to migrate hosts easily by transfering files across, no database migration required.

Statamic is a flat file based content management system written in PHP. With Statamic you can build better and faster websites that are easy to manage. Statamic features over 40 field types, drag & drop navigation builder, revision and content history, inline content editing, asset management, plugin architecture and real-time collaboration that makes content management a breeze.

Jekyll is a static site generator written in Ruby. With Jekyll, you can transform your plain text into static websites or blogs. No more database, and cumbersome updates and install, simply focus on your content. In Jekyll, permalinks categories, pages, posts, and custom layouts are factored into the design, so you can get started writing content, right away. For layouts and template, Jekyll uses the Liquid templating language which allow you to design and structure a site to your liking. In a nutshell Markdown, Liquid, HTML and CSS goes in, and out comes a static site ready for deployment.

Bludit is a content management system that allow you to build your own website or blog in seconds, it's completely free and open source. Markdown support. The flat file architecture of Bludit makes your websites extremely fast, while still allow you and your team to manage content the way you would in other popular content management systems like WordPress, Joomla and Drupal. Without relying on databases like MySQL or complicated DevOps workflows.

Joomla is a free and open-source content management system written in PHP. The CMS is built entirely by volunteers from all over the world and has a strong community that provide educational resources, and extensions. 

MODX is a free, open source content management system and digital experience platform. The CMS gives you full control over your creative, editorial vision and the experience you deliver. MODX is written in the programming language PHP and supports both MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server databases. The CMS is openly developed and released under the GPL license, and allows contribution.

Netlify CMS is a static site generator that is based on client-side JavaScript with a reusable APIs and prebuilt Markup. Simply pull in Netlify CMS to /admin of you site and you have an SPA (Single Page Application) admin panel that can edit content stored in a Git repository. Serving applications like this, the JAMstack way, improves performance, lowers cost of scaling and provides for a better development experience.

Strapi is a free and open source headless CMS developed with JavaScript for Node.js. The software makes it really simple to generate REST and GraphQL APIs. Simply create your database schema and relationships in the Strapi admin panel UI, and Strapi will auto-generate API endpoints to represent the data structures provided. Strapi comes packed with features you come to expect from normal CMS's such as authentication, authorization, content management and a media library. The software can be used for free and can be self-hosted on any server and platform. Extra enterpise functionallity is currently being developed, and will be sold at cost.