I'm now using Kirby as the content management system for this website.
Sure, this might come as a surprise to everyone who—for years in a row—heard me preaching:
"Headless CMS & Static Site Generation FTW!".
But after a closer look, the surprise isn't that big actually:
- on the tech side of things, also Kirby can be used "headless" (thanks to it's Kirby Query Language API) and it likewise can generate a static site;
- secondly, and this is where Kirby really stood out rather quickly to me (after I got introduced to it in the context of a customer project—that ironically picked Wordpress instead) is the elegant approach of the product, rooted in and aiming for simplicity—for it's customizability, the clean user interface (admin panel), the code base, it's extensibility, the documentation;
- then, it's an open-source Product, one for which I happily bought a license—and so should you. The fair pricing in combination with the dedication of it's creator is an essential part of ensuring a sustainable future for the product and for me makes it a perfect fit in the context of Small Web and Indie Web;
- last not least, Kirby has had a strong development over the years, build up a vibrant community and a rich and quality-wise "good-enough" plugin ecosystem.
Especially the last point might come—again—as a surprise, given my to this day advising against most (PHP-based), open-source CMS products and projects. There you have it, it's possible.
Small disclaimer though: I still feel not comfortable exposing any PHP endpoint to the public. Therefore I'm essentially keeping the Kirby installation behind a authentication gate.
But, with all that said: yes, I'm enjoying a CMS—finally.