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RakunCMS

The flat-file PHP CMS that deploys to shared hosting in minutes.

RakunCMS is a blazing fast, flat-file CMS built for shared hosting environments — powered by Markdown, Twig, Yoyo reactive components, and PSR standards. Content can live in flat Markdown files or a database — no heavyweight stack required.

Why RakunCMS?

We built RakunCMS as an alternative to CMSs like WordPress, Grav, Statamic, and Kirby. Our core philosophy is simplicity, performance, and accessibility.

• Flat-file or database: content lives in Markdown files (folder = site structure) by default, or in MySQL via the opt-in content store — same Query API either way.
• Runs on $3/mo shared hosting (cPanel/Plesk): Deploy effortlessly via FTP/cPanel. No persistent processes, no VPS required.
• No Node.js or Docker required: Everything runs in a pure PHP ecosystem.
• Composer-installable: Manage your site easily with Composer.
• Reactive components without writing JavaScript: Build interactive UIs with PHP components that update seamlessly without full page reloads, powered by Yoyo (htmx).
• PSR-7/11/15/16 compliant: Built on a custom micro-framework with under 5MB of total dependencies.

Installation & Quick Start

Getting started with RakunCMS is incredibly fast:

Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser to see your site running!

Core Features

• Flat-File Architecture (default): By default, everything is stored in Markdown and YAML — no MySQL configuration, no database backups. Opt in to a MySQL content store by setting content.driver: mysql in config, powered by ContentStorageFactory selecting between FileContentStorage and MysqlContentStorage via the ContentStorage interface. A SQLite-backed content index (set index.driver: sqlite) is also available for large collections where a PHP-array index would be memory-intensive.
• Reactive Yoyo Components: Build interactive, stateful PHP components (similar to Livewire) using HTMX under the hood.
• Built-in SEO Engine: Automatically generates Open Graph tags, JSON-LD markup, handles consent management, and integrates with WebMCP.
• Full-Text Search: Features an integrated inverted index for blazing fast search capabilities without needing external services like Algolia or Elasticsearch.
• Native i18n: Out-of-the-box support for multi-locale routing and content localization.
• Multi-Level Caching: Achieve 1-3ms response times in production using static HTML full-page caching coupled with OPcache.
• CLI Tools: Integrated rakun command-line tool to easily clear the cache, make components, or run background queue workers.
• Static Export: bin/rakun build renders every published entry to dist/<url>/index.html and generates sitemap.xml/rss.xml/robots.txt — source-agnostic and fully compatible with both file and mysql content stores. Deploy to any cheap or static host.
• Optional Admin Panel: rakuncms-admin is a separate, optional Laravel + Filament application that manages one or more RakunCMS sites over the HTTP content API. Flat-file sites can still be edited by hand or via Git with no admin panel required.

Developer Experience (DX)

• Laravel Herd Integration: Includes a custom Valet driver (RakunCmsValetDriver) and the php rakun herd:install command for automatic site discovery and blazingly fast local development on macOS.
• Clean Architecture: Built on a highly optimized, custom PSR-compliant micro-framework. Total production dependencies are kept strictly under 5MB, ensuring a lightweight footprint for any hosting environment.

How It Works

1. Write Content: Create or edit .md files directly in the content/ directory.
2. Customize Design: Edit the .twig templates located in templates/ to match your brand.
3. Add Interactivity: Build stateful Yoyo components in src/Components/ with matching views in templates/yoyo/.

Deployment — Plesk via Git + GitHub webhook

RakunCMS sites deploy cleanly on Plesk using Plesk's built-in Git integration pulling from GitHub, with a GitHub webhook that triggers a deploy on every push. This is the canonical reference for the RakunCMS ecosystem (the sites built on top of rkn/cms follow the same flow).

Flow: GitHub push → webhook → Plesk pulls the branch → Plesk runs the deployment actions (composer install + cache/sitemap warmup) → the new code is live under the domain's document root.

1. Prepare the domain in Plesk

• Create or choose the subscription/domain that hosts the site.
• Hosting Settings → PHP: select PHP 8.2+ (8.3 recommended) with mbstring enabled.
• Ensure the Git component is installed (Plesk → Tools & Settings → Updates → Add Components → Git).

2. Connect the GitHub repository — Websites & Domains → Git → Add Repository

• Repository URL:
  • Public repo: https://github.com/<org>/<repo>.git
  • Private repo: use SSH [email protected]:<org>/<repo>.git and add the deploy key Plesk shows to GitHub → repo → Settings → Deploy keys (read-only access is enough).
• Branch: main.
• Deployment path: the folder Plesk publishes to (e.g. the domain's httpdocs).

3. Point the document root at public/

RakunCMS serves from the public/ front controller. Set Hosting Settings → Document root to <deployment-path>/public (e.g. httpdocs/public).

4. Enable automatic deployment + actions

In the repository's settings in Plesk:

• Deployment mode: Automatic (deploy when the repository is updated) — this is what the webhook drives.

• Additional deployment actions (run after each pull, from the repo root):

  Use the explicit Plesk PHP 8.3 binary (/opt/plesk/php/8.3/bin/php) — the default php in deployment actions can be an older version. Adjust the composer.phar path to your Plesk install (or use a composer available on PATH).

5. Add the GitHub webhook

Plesk shows a Webhook URL for the repository once Automatic deployment is on. Copy it, then in GitHub → repo → Settings → Webhooks → Add webhook:

• Payload URL: the Plesk webhook URL.
• Content type: application/json.
• Which events: Just the push event.
• Save. Pushing to main now calls Plesk and deploys automatically.

6. Writable paths & config

• Ensure cache/ and storage/ are writable by the subscription's web user.
• Site config lives in config/rakun.yaml; keep secrets (API keys, mail, payment keys) in environment variables / .env on the server — never commit them.
• First deploy of a brand-new site only: scaffold the structure with php bin/rakun init.

RakunCMS also ships its own deploy:* commands (atomic FTP/SSH deploys for shared hosting without Git). The Plesk + GitHub webhook flow above is the recommended path when the host runs Plesk.

Documentation

Full documentation, guides, deployment instructions, and API reference can be found at:
https://rakuncms.com/docs

Contributing

We welcome all contributions from the community! If you're looking to help out, report bugs, or understand how RakunCMS works under the hood, please read our Contributing Guide which includes an in-depth Architecture Overview.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later