File Based CMS and Static Site Generator

Nesta is a lightweight CMS for building content sites and blogs, written in
Sinatra.

Content can be written in Markdown or Textile, stored in text files on your
computer. There is no database.

You do your writing in your text editor.

Publish by pushing your changes to a git repository that’s setup to deploy your
changes to the web.

Installation

Begin by installing Ruby, then the Nesta gem:

$ gem install nesta

Use the nesta command to generate a new site:

$ nesta new mysite.com --git  # a git repo is optional, but recommended

Install a few dependencies, and you’re away:

$ cd mysite.com
$ bundle

You’ll find configuration options for your site in config/config.yml. The
defaults will work, but you’ll want to tweak it before you go very far.

That’s it - you can launch a local web server in development mode using
mr-sparkle…

$ bundle exec mr-sparkle config.ru

…then point your web browser at http://localhost:8080. Start editing
the files in content/pages (see the docs on writing content for full
instructions).

You can either deploy it behind a web server, or build a static version of
your site:

$ nesta build  # but see config.yml for related settings

Support

There’s plenty of information on http://nestacms.com. If you need some
help with anything feel free to file an issue, or contact me on Mastodon
(@[email protected]).

Contributing

If you want to add a new feature, consider creating an issue so we can
have a chat before you start coding. I might be able to chip in with ideas on
how to approach it, or suggest that we implement it as a plugin (to keep Nesta
itself lean and simple).

– Graham