If you´re a developer looking to build a reliable super-fast Website, nowadays your best choice is to opt for a static site generator (SSG) like Jekyll or Hugo over GitHub or some other hosting provider. The problem with this approach is that you don’t have access to the workflow capabilities of a CMS such as WordPress. With Forestry.io you can give non-coders a GUI sitting atop your fast static Site.
We’ve covered a similar tool in the past (see our coverage of Appernetic), but Forestry.io takes a slightly different approach to the problem. As Scott Gallant, the Charlottetown, PE, Canada-based co-founder of the startup states, he got to building a Website for someone last summer & he wasn’t at all keen on using WordPress, so he got together with a colleague & decided to build Forestry.io, with the following in mind:
- Support all Jekyll plugins
- Integrate with GitHub & Bitbucket (commits back to your repo)
- Zero configuration for your project
- Hosting not provided (deploy to S3, Github Pages, FTP)
- Use Markdown or WYSIWYG
As it stands now, the way the tool works is as follows:
- 1st you import the project by connecting to a repo or uploading a zip of your Jekyll or Hugo project
- Build the CMS – let Forestry.io parse the project & it will automatically build a CMS
- Deploy your Site – connect to your host to publish your changes, & when using Git, the updates will be committed to your repo (when updates are made via the CMS, Forestry.io compiles the Site & deploys it to your host: GitHub Pages, S3, FTP…)
If you’re using Bitbucket or Git, all changes will be monitored by Forestry.io & they will be pulled in, so that way, while your contributors & editors use the CMS, you can push code. Not only that, but you can take advantage of the wealth of available Jekyll plugins by loading them into your Gemfile as they will work seamlessly with Forestry.io.
Forestry.io source is on GitHub here & is currently in beta.
– This post is merely a startup profile based on publicly available information & not a review. –
Image Credit: Forestry.io
