Every CMS out there promises simplicity, but most end up buried under layers of abstraction, plugin dependencies, and configuration headaches. oCMS was born from a different idea: what if a content management system was just a single binary you could drop onto any server and run?
Why Another CMS?
After years of working with heavyweight content platforms — wrestling with PHP dependency managers, debugging opaque template engines, and waiting for page builds to complete — I wanted something radically simpler. Something that compiles to a single executable, starts in milliseconds, and serves pages without needing a separate database server, cache layer, or runtime environment.
That's oCMS. A CMS written in Go, powered by SQLite, and designed to get out of your way.
The Stack
oCMS is built on a deliberately minimal stack:
- Go — a compiled language with excellent standard library support for HTTP, templating, and concurrency. No runtime required on the server.
- SQLite — an embedded database that lives as a single file alongside the binary. No separate database server to manage, back up, or secure.
- Custom HTML theming engine — themes are plain HTML templates with a clean data contract. No proprietary template syntax to learn.
- TinyMCE editor — a familiar, battle-tested rich text editor in the admin panel.
The result is a CMS that deploys as a single binary plus a SQLite file. That's the entire production stack.
What Makes It Different
Zero external dependencies at runtime. No PHP, no Node.js, no Redis, no PostgreSQL cluster. Copy the binary to a server, point it at a port, and it serves your site.
Site instances. oCMS separates the core engine from site-specific configuration. The core lives in one repository; each site is a thin wrapper with its own theme, .env, and deployment config. Multiple sites can share the same core without forking it.
Theming that respects HTML. Themes are directories of HTML files, CSS, and JavaScript — structured around a simple JSON manifest. If you know HTML, you can build a theme. No compilation step, no build tools required for the theme itself.
Built-in essentials. Categories, tags, menus, media management, SEO settings, URL aliases, redirects, form builder, webhooks, scheduled publishing, multilingual support, an event log — all included without plugins.
Who Is This For?
oCMS is for developers who want full control without the overhead. If you've ever deployed a CMS and thought "this is way too much machinery for what I need," oCMS is the answer. It's particularly well-suited for:
- Personal blogs and portfolio sites
- Small business websites
- Documentation sites
- Any project where you want a proper admin panel without enterprise-grade complexity
Try It Yourself
Curious what oCMS looks and feels like? A public demo instance is available at ocms-demo.fly.dev — including full access to the Admin dashboard. Poke around, create pages, explore the theme settings. No signup required.
What's Next
This site — ocms.tech — is itself running on oCMS. It's the first public instance, and it will serve as the project's home: documentation, release notes, and a living example of what the CMS can do.
The project is under active development. There's much more to come — a module system, an API-first approach for headless use cases, and a growing theme gallery. Stay tuned.