holzcloud-CMS is a self-hosted CMS written in Go that runs many websites
from one binary and one SQLite file. Its sites ship no JavaScript and load
nothing from third parties, so they are fast and need no cookie banner. Made in
Switzerland, free software under the AGPL-3.0.
Project page ·
Releases ·
Documentation
[!WARNING]
Beta: safe to run with backups, not feature-frozen. Features, settings, the
template contract and the AI tools can still change from one release to the
next, and the database schema is not promised stable. Back up the data
directory before every update and read the changelog. What
0.1.0 promises and what it does not is written in
docs/beta.md; the admin screen still labels every 0.x build
alpha until 1.0.
Why
- No JavaScript on the websites. The eight built-in templates ship none, and
an uploaded template with a script, an
onclick or a javascript: link is
refused. Visitors get HTML and CSS.
- Nothing loaded from third parties. No CDN, web fonts, analytics, embeds or
update check; fonts are compiled into the binary and every page carries a
default-src 'self' content security policy. That is why a site needs no
cookie banner, which suits GDPR.
- The admin works without JavaScript too. Every action is an ordinary form;
htmx, served from this server, only makes it quicker.
- One static binary, one SQLite file. No database server, no PHP, no Node,
no build step. Built for a small Linux server.
- Many websites, many domains. Requests are routed by
Host. Sites can be
multilingual, with hreflang and a language picker; the admin comes in German,
English, French, Italian and Spanish.
- Edit with your own AI assistant. A built-in MCP server
with about 140 tools lets Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP client do what the admin
can. New pages stay drafts until you publish them.
- A shop for Switzerland. Products with stock, orders by invoice or payment
in advance (Payrexx optional), prices in CHF, with or without VAT.
- No lock-in. A whole website exports as one readable archive, there is a
WordPress importer, and
holzcloud export writes a static copy any web host
can serve.
It covers what many people use WordPress for (pages, posts, media, menus,
multilingual sites, SEO, a small shop), with content kinds and fields of your
own in the manner of Statamic; see the
comparison with Statamic.
A look around
More screens, such as the media library and custom fields, are described in
Publishing. The screenshots show a
fictional site; a complete one to import is in sites/.
Install
Download holzcloud-linux-amd64 from the
newest release, check it
against the .sha256 file beside it, then:
chmod +x holzcloud-linux-amd64
./holzcloud-linux-amd64
Open http://localhost:8080/admin, create the first account (administrators set
up a TOTP second factor right after), then add a website and its domain under
Websites.
There is also a container image, ghcr.io/holzcloud/holzcloud-cms. To build
from source you need Go 1.26 and nothing else:
CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -trimpath -ldflags="-s -w" -o holzcloud ./cmd/holzcloud
Configuration is a set of HOLZCLOUD_* variables. A hardened systemd unit, a
Caddyfile for automatic HTTPS and a WAL-safe backup script are in
deploy/.
Documentation
- Deploying: systemd, Caddy, backups, single sign-on
- Beta criteria: what 0.1.0 promises and what it does not
- Configuration: every environment variable, e-mail
- Content model: fields, content kinds, block kinds
- Publishing: pages, menus, media, templates, design, SEO, plugins
- Multilingual
- Security: threat model, two-factor, sign-in through OpenID Connect
- Import and export
- AI access: the MCP endpoint, key levels, tools
- Architecture and deployment and versioning
- Changelog, contributing, security policy
Licence
GNU Affero General Public License v3. Running it for yourself or for
clients obliges you to nothing beyond keeping the notices; if you offer a
modified version to others over a network, they are entitled to your changes.
Bundled fonts (Manrope, JetBrains Mono) are under the SIL Open Font License 1.1,
see VENDOR.md. Contributions are accepted
under the same licence.
