Bespoke simple CMS (Decentralised?)

Dup · 2 May 2020 at 12:21

When/if I ever go back to work, there will be a shift towards using React for our internal and external websites front-end.

While I'm a front-end dev, I tend to strictly avoid frameworks as work I have undertaken generally hasn't required it, so it's about time I got myself up to speed.

So I have a personal project for a friend I want to build at its core is very simple. It's a customer-facing website that lists some available deals and offers and a few of your usual info pages a small business would have.

Is like like to build my own CMS for this. Sure I needn't re-invent the wheel and could just adapt one of many CMS out there to my needs, essentially it's just spitting out a list however they come with their own baggage and aspects neither me nor the end user need. The aim is for a clean and bespoke solution for a very small site that only gives them what they need with a clean and tidy back end UI & UX.

So I want to use a React front-end to link it up with my current work position however I am stuck with how to configure the back off side of things. It's going to need a database of some sort and this is where I'm not 100% what to do. I'm keen to open myself to learning more outside of js. I have PHP & MYSQL experience and am comfortable with that however it's not the flavour of the month. Would a decentralised solution be more relevant if maybe a little overkill for the project?

TLR
Super basic CMS.
Front end/back-end interface will be React.
I'll need to be able to do server-side rendering for SEO purposes.
Need a back office solution for database interface... Node or Python API maybe?
Which database technology? SQL?

Manoj-Kumar1978 · 2 May 2020 at 15:25

Hello Dup

I made a start a few years ago on writing my own PHP cms and boy did that struggle to get off the ground lol

I'm a freelance web designer/developer and have basic back-end php knowledge but bit rusty in terms of OOP with PhP.

As for PhP not being flavour of the month, i believe PhP will not be going anywhere. Its still one of the core backend languages to use for big ecommerce websites and some of the worlds biggest websites are powered by PHP.

peterwalkley · 2 May 2020 at 18:30

The problem with implementing your own back end is that you need to take care of all the security vectors that a hacker will use to probe and break into sites using your code: SQL injection, html / js injection, cross site scripting etc etc. Not saying you can't do it, but do you really want to have to think about all that stuff rather than using a tried and tested framework to build what your friend actually needs ?

ChroniC · 5 May 2020 at 00:44

Does sound like trying to reinvent the wheel for the sake of it. Just use WP and be done with it.

BaJ · 5 May 2020 at 19:02

I’d suggest looking at a modern headless cms, check out the following examples.

https://www.storyblok.com/
https://strapi.io/
https://www.sanity.io/
https://prismic.io/

If you are getting in to the React world then it might be worth having a look at Gatsby too, which seems to be what all the cool kids are using. You can have you static site easily pulling in content/data from the systems mentioned above.

Take a look at Netlify too if you’ve not already.

Hades · 6 May 2020 at 11:16

Maybe take a look at Django for Python. I am just learning this now and it takes care of a lot of things like database table creation, management of user permissions etc.

Dup · 9 May 2020 at 10:34

Thank guys! Appreciate the help.

Yeah I known it's reinventing the wheel, more for a learning exercise. I prefer to learn by doing something useful but don't want to jump straight into the frameworks before getting into the core of things. I find all these front-end frameworks fragile.

I might try a Django API with a Rest front end. May also look into Laravel as a monolithic project as that seems popular too (and I have some PHP background).

I'll never ever touch WordPress, it's just not for me.

ChroniC · 10 May 2020 at 00:40

You can install Sage as a template on WordPress which makes it a Larevel style system with app controllers and blade templates if you really want too.