Developing a New Headless CMS Vol. 2
Now that we understand general blog services, we explain the goals of KuroCMS in detail, including AI integration, free usage, OSS, Cloudflare-native, and more.
In the last volume, I explained CMSs. With WordPress, which holds the largest market share in the world, you can do anything. However, as it is fundamentally an English-centric product, for Japanese usage, Japanese services are best. Moreover, because of its high functionality, WordPress has become extremely complex and is no longer something beginners can start easily. When I started my blog, my soul cried out: "Updating the blog is hard enough, I can't handle managing system settings as well!"
Therefore, in KuroCMS, we have drastically reduced system configuration options to achieve Simple is Best!, allowing you to start with the bare minimum and focus only on the parts that matter to you.
Primary Goals of KuroCMS
- Super easy installation! Deployable without a PC.
- Allows you to start for free and keep using it for free.
- Enables complete freedom in page design.
- Allows you to use your own new domain (or run without one).
- Delivers a super fast site that provides zero stress to visitors.
- Enables writing articles in integration with AI.
These are our initial six goals. To achieve them, we have decided on specific approaches.
1. Super Easy Installation! Deployable Without a PC
This is the first point. While free Japanese blog services can be started with a single smartphone, headless CMSs make it difficult to go PC-free due to their architectural nature. In KuroCMS, despite being a headless CMS, we have limited what can be done to make PC-free deployment possible. Specifically, by turning designs into templates and sharing them through the community, users can easily apply or switch between various designs.
2. Start for Free and Keep Using It for Free
The key to our design is packaging everything to run within Cloudflare's free tier. As long as you are updating a standard blog, it should remain free forever. Unless you are uploading videos, music, or extremely heavy images, it won't be an issue at all. For such media, you can use other free hosting platforms (like YouTube) and link to them. Of course, Cloudflare alone is also capable of serving images, videos, and music.
3. Complete Freedom in Page Design
This is the true highlight of a headless CMS. You can create your own designs. In KuroCMS, you can register templates you build in the KuroCMS public template library. Of course, you can also download and instantly apply templates built by others. You can preview the design in the admin dashboard simply by switching templates. The library includes about 20 initial templates, all mobile-friendly.
Template Library under development: https://dev-kurocms.kuro.boo/templates/
4. Use Your Own New Domain
By using Cloudflare as the base infrastructure, domain acquisition and management can be handled under a single roof. You can use a domain acquired through Cloudflare as is, specify a folder path like /blog/, or set up a subdomain like blog.mydomain.com. Since it is configured as a custom domain, you can easily change it later. Domain acquisition fees on Cloudflare are cheaper than at other registrars, and DNS server fees are free.
5. Super Fast Site with Zero Stress to Visitors
This is a major feature of KuroCMS. Since all generated pages are static (unlike dynamic pages that communicate with servers while loading), it simply displays what was built within edge computers. (Precisely, it utilizes KV within edge computers.) Cloudflare has data centers in 335 cities globally and connects directly with 13,000 ISPs, serving static cached pages from the physically closest location to the viewer's browser. Even behind corporate proxies, static pages allow proxy caches to work, further speeding up display. This is a significant difference from dynamic headless CMSs.
6. Writing Articles in Integration with AI
It is no exaggeration to say this is the most crucial part of KuroCMS. Connecting AI to KuroCMS via the REST API enables content creation powered by AI, including article creation, proofreading, editing, and multi-language translation. As discussed in other articles, this allows humans to focus on important parts while AI handles repetitive tasks. High-accuracy translation, like the latest ChatGPT, makes it easy to localize your articles. This could connect the world further, foster mutual understanding, and maybe even reduce wars a little. lol.
In Conclusion
KuroCMS, which boasts these features, will basically be released on GitHub under a modified MIT license to give back to society. It has been over a month since development started, and since I work on it during my weekends, it will take a little more time to complete. I am working hard on my days off, hoping KuroCMS will help those starting a blog or planning to migrate. Although I am drinking beer while doing so. lol.
【Public Site】