Best alternative (w CMS) to Webflow (no CMS) for this type of news site

I just LOVE that diagram Alex - so clever.

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The diagram is awesome. I had a four week course in Drupal and when the course was over looked into the theming part because that’s what I’m really interested in. In short I never managed to do any of my own Drupal theming.

@AlexN when describe Modx it’s looks easy enough, just like Surreal. But when I look at Modx documention I don’t understand. Need to take another look.

Also look at OctoberCMS, it’s super easy but have some nice things going on that I really liked. Pulsecms is also a nice simple option. Don’t overlook Perch. And yes Get Simple cms, that’s the first cms I did understand, that’s after tried to understand WP that is. Workes likes what AlexN describe How Modx works. Don’t need a database and in there forum people made 500+ pages sites.

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Another very nice and simple CMS is Webhook. It combines the power and security of a static site generator+hosting with a CMS app.

What I really like about Webflow is that it is non-opinionated. You can start with a blank canvas and create only the content types your site will need. (Nerd content: I also dig that their entire stack is built around grunt generators and a Firebase backend.)

With other CMS’s, you need to try to figure out “what fits where” within your design, as it relates to pre-defined ‘pages’, ‘blocks’, ‘chunks’, etc. – and sometimes that can even influence your design and layout.

But of course, as with most CMS’s, you will need to decouple your site’s primary components (header/footer/content/etc.) and replace them with the appropriate placeholders (partials, variables, etc.) before a CMS is of any use.

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@dkenzik, have you got any live examples of people that have used Webflow over Webhook? It seems like a great tool, but comes with a subscription model as well.

If you look at this 30 min tutorial to setup a blog CMS from scratch, i wonder if Pinegrow isn’t an easier service for more design-minded people?

@Diu - I do not have a specific example, although I’m working on a couple sites now in Webflow which I’m planning to integrate into Webhook. Previously I’d just hand-code based on wireframes and iterate. But after rediscovering Webflow, I will save my keystrokes for deeper customization and coding post-design.

Yes, there is a subscription model. Webhook has to pay for their servers somehow. But, at $9/site (and 14 days free for each site), it’s on par with other cheap hosts. And if that’s not your style, the entire system is open sourced (hear that @webflow – take a look at their CMS), so you can take it and host it elsewhere, saving the monthly fees if that’s a deterrent.

Anyway, I only wanted to point it out as an alternative to other well-known and heavy CMS’s.

Pinegrow looks interesting. I’ll have to take a look at it. What initially caught my eye is the Wordpress theming. Since Wordpress is so prevalent, that could come in handy for users without coding chops.

I’m working with Webflow and Webhook, and its a perfect match.

That would work unless you had to come back to webflow to make major changes.

Craft CMS

Suppose this was a system where changes in webflow show up in the CMS without having to download a zip file and you only export the zip file after finalizing everything. So the idea is having a “development/preview mode” and a “final/production mode” which uses the zip file.

That, to me, would be the ideal system.

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Yeah, but would anything like that be possible?

It’s definitely possible. I have personally worked with such a system.

This is more of a blog ( http://ixora.link), but it’s a good example of integrating a webflow theme into a simplified CMS type system. Our working explanation is that our platform is a “bring your own webflow theme” system. The approach is very alpha but is working well for us.

Wow integrating into a CMS is so complicated! Love the diagram @AlexN.

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I used to like MODX a lot some time ago and thought it was the absolute best CMS, it’s really great, but then I found out that many Modx fans were moving to ProcessWire and saying it was better, so I thought “it must be something!”. Integration with Webflow seems to be pretty easy.

processwire.com
lightning.pw