[!IMPORTANT]
Nextly is in alpha. APIs may change before 1.0. Pin exact versions in production.
Nextly is an open-source content platform for Next.js.
Developers define the content model in TypeScript, or build it in the admin with the Visual Schema Builder; either way it is the same data model. Your team then composes pages in the Visual Page Builder, translates them, keeps a version history, and schedules what goes live. MIT licensed, self-hosted: it runs inside your own Next.js app, on your own PostgreSQL or MySQL database, or SQLite for local work.
Why Nextly?
- Model in code, or in the admin. Define your content types (we call them collections) in TypeScript, or build them in the Visual Schema Builder. Same data model either way.
- Compose pages visually. The Visual Page Builder gives your team a canvas of blocks your developers registered. Pages render on the server, and the core blocks add no JavaScript of their own.
- Run in several languages. The same site in multiple locales, with a fallback when a translation is missing. Each language has its own draft and published state, so you can publish one language without publishing the rest.
- Keep a version history. Compare any two versions of a document and restore one. Restoring snapshots the current state first, so nothing is destroyed.
- Schedule what goes live. Group entries into a release and publish or unpublish them together, at a time you choose.
- Control who can edit what. Roles and permissions, down to individual fields.
- Connect it to the rest of your stack. Webhooks with signing secrets and retries, background jobs, and dashboard widgets in the admin.
- Extend it. A plugin SDK covering schema, services, routes, admin UI and permissions. The Visual Page Builder is itself a plugin.
- Typed from your config.
nextly generate:types writes types for the collections, singles and field groups in your config. Those made in the Visual Schema Builder get none.
- Your database, your storage. PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite. Local disk by default; S3 (and R2, MinIO), Vercel Blob, or UploadThing for production.
- Self-hosted, MIT-licensed. Your stack, your data, no vendor lock-in.
Quickstart
# pnpm
pnpm create nextly-app@alpha my-app
# npm
npx create-nextly-app@alpha my-app
# yarn
yarn create nextly-app@alpha my-app
# bun
bun create nextly-app@alpha my-app
That's it. Follow the prompts and you'll have a running CMS with an admin panel and a database.
Prefer a manual setup? See the installation guide for clone-and-configure instructions, Docker, and database options.
A tiny example
A minimal nextly.config.ts that defines a posts collection and exposes a typed API:
import {
defineConfig,
defineCollection,
text,
richText,
relationship,
} from "nextly";
const Posts = defineCollection({
slug: "posts",
fields: [
text({ name: "title", required: true }),
richText({ name: "body" }),
relationship({ name: "author", relationTo: "users" }),
],
});
export default defineConfig({
collections: [Posts],
});
Set DATABASE_URL (and DB_DIALECT) in your .env; Nextly picks the dialect automatically. Posts.title and Posts.body are typed end to end, queryable via REST or Direct API, and editable from the admin panel.
Packages
Core
| Package | Description |
|---|
| nextly | Core CMS: database, services, REST and Direct APIs, RBAC, hooks |
| @nextlyhq/admin | Admin dashboard and management interface |
| @nextlyhq/ui | Headless UI components shared across packages and plugins |
| create-nextly-app | CLI scaffold for new Nextly projects |
Page builder
| Package | Description |
|---|
| @nextlyhq/builder | The Visual Page Builder editor: shell, canvas, and op store |
| @nextlyhq/blocks-engine | Block document model, tree operations, and validation. No runtime |
| @nextlyhq/blocks-react | React Server Component renderer for block documents |
Database adapters
| Package | Description |
|---|
| @nextlyhq/adapter-postgres | PostgreSQL adapter (recommended for production) |
| @nextlyhq/adapter-mysql | MySQL adapter |
| @nextlyhq/adapter-sqlite | SQLite adapter (local demos only) |
Storage adapters
| Package | Description |
|---|
| @nextlyhq/storage-s3 | Amazon S3 (also R2, MinIO) |
| @nextlyhq/storage-vercel-blob | Vercel Blob storage |
| @nextlyhq/storage-uploadthing | UploadThing storage |
Plugins
Nextly has a plugin SDK, in alpha: pin exact versions. The Visual Page Builder is itself a plugin.
| Package | Description |
|---|
| @nextlyhq/plugin-page-builder | Visual Page Builder: blocks, canvas, server-first rendering |
| @nextlyhq/plugin-seo | SEO fields and a sitemap for your content |
| @nextlyhq/plugin-form-builder | Visual form builder and submission capture |
| @nextlyhq/plugin-sdk | Build your own plugins: schema, services, routes, admin UI |
| @nextlyhq/plugin-mcp | Experimental, off by default: a read-only MCP endpoint with one tool that tells an agent what its credential may read |
Nextly is in alpha, and some plugin surfaces are still settling. The stability ladder says which parts are stable today and which are experimental.
Tooling
| Package | Description |
|---|
| @nextlyhq/adapter-drizzle | Shared Drizzle ORM adapter logic behind the database adapters |
| @nextlyhq/admin-css | Scopes and compiles the admin CSS, for the admin build and plugins |
| @nextlyhq/eslint-plugin | ESLint rules keeping admin UI on the design-token system |
Requirements
| Tool | Minimum |
|---|
| Node.js | 22.12+ or 24+ (not 23; Node 24 LTS recommended) |
| pnpm | 9+ recommended; npm, yarn, and bun also supported |
| Next.js | Supported versions, App Router required |
| React | Supported versions |
| TypeScript | 5+ |
Database support
| Database | Minimum | Notes |
|---|
| PostgreSQL | 15.0+ | Standard PG, Neon (also reachable via Vercel Marketplace), Supabase, RDS, Aurora PG, Railway, Cloud SQL. |
| MySQL | 8.0+ | MariaDB, TiDB, Aurora MySQL, PlanetScale, Vitess on best-effort. |
| SQLite | 3.38+ | Bundled with better-sqlite3. Local demos only. |
See the database support docs for the full version policy and cloud-provider notes.
Documentation
- Installation: add Nextly to a new or existing project
- Quick start: create a project, start it and create the first admin
- Tutorial: build a blog: posts and categories, step by step
- Configuration: collections, singles, fields, hooks
- Visual Schema Builder: define schema in the admin UI
- Authentication & permissions: RBAC, API keys, JWT
- REST API and Direct API
- Database: Postgres, MySQL, SQLite adapters
- Admin customization: extend the dashboard
- Plugin development: build your own integrations
- Deployment: Vercel, Docker, and more
With a coding agent
Skills that teach Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents to install
Nextly, define collections, set up authentication and deploy live in
skills/. Add them to your project with:
npx skills add nextlyhq/nextly
Examples
- Blog template: production-quality blog with seeded content, RSS, sitemap, search
- Blank template: minimal starter for building from scratch
How Nextly compares
Nextly draws inspiration from each of these projects. The table compares Nextly against the most common Next.js CMS choices, both self-hosted and SaaS. If you want a fully managed SaaS that you do not run yourself, Sanity is the strongest pick on the right; if you want to own your stack and your data, look at the left.
Checked on 2026-10-16 against each project's own documentation, linked below.
| Dimension | Nextly | Payload | Strapi v5 | Sanity |
|---|
| License | MIT | MIT | MIT (+ EE) | MIT (Studio); proprietary SaaS (Content Lake) |
| Self-hostable | yes | yes | yes | no (the Studio can be; the Content Lake is hosted SaaS) |
| Hosted in your Next.js app | yes | yes | no (separate Node server) | no (Studio mounts in your app; data is hosted SaaS) |
| Code-first schema | yes | yes | partial (strapi generate writes JSON schemas) | yes |
| Visual schema builder | yes | no | yes (in development only) | no |
| Both code-first and visual | yes | no | partial | no |
| Database / storage | Postgres, MySQL (SQLite for local work) | Postgres, MongoDB, SQLite | Postgres, MySQL/MariaDB, SQLite | Sanity Content Lake (managed) |
"Partial" for Strapi: a content type is a JSON schema file, written by strapi generate or by the admin's Content-type Builder, and the builder works in development only.
Sources:
- Nextly: licence, installation, configuration, Visual Schema Builder, database support.
- Payload: licence, what Payload is, databases.
- Strapi: licence, installation, CLI, Content-type Builder, databases.
- Sanity: Studio licence, setup and deployment, Studio in Next.js, Content Lake.
Roadmap
See nextlyhq.com/roadmap for what's next.
Community
Contributing
Contributions of every size are welcome: typo fixes, new database adapters, plugins, docs improvements, anything. Start with the Contributing guide for local setup, the development workflow, and our PR/commit conventions.
Local boot is one command: pnpm install && pnpm dev:app from a fresh clone lands a working /admin with seeded demo content. SQLite by default, no Docker required. pnpm dev:postgres and pnpm dev:mysql are opt-in if you want to test against those.
Telemetry
The Nextly CLI (create-nextly-app and nextly) collects usage data under a random ID, to help us improve the tool: never your name, project contents, file paths or secrets. It is off in CI, Docker, production and non-interactive shells, and nextly telemetry disable turns it off.
See nextlyhq.com/docs/telemetry for the full list of what is and is not collected, and for the environment variable that also turns it off (NEXTLY_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1).
License
MIT. Free to use, modify, and distribute.
