ApostropheCMS VS Next.js

If you are not familiar with that technology, ApostropheCMS is an open-source website builder and CMS developed with modern technologies such as Vue.js and Node.js. It enables editors to effortlessly create and manage content through an intuitive UI, while developers have the ability to customize the admin UI by overriding existing Vue.js components and extending it with new menus and field types. At the same time, you keep the ability to use your technologies of choice on the front end. Learn more in the documentation.

Apostrophe's CTO, Tom Boutell, recently presented a talk at Philly Tech Week to share his experience using the OpenAI API to integrate AI into Apostrophe. If you are not familiar with this tool, Apostrophe is an open-source CMS built on modern technologies like Node.js and Vue.js that can operate as a traditional CMS, headless CMS, and website builder.

ApostropheCMS allows multiple content contributors and editors to work on documents across multiple sites. Keeping track of when changes were made to a document and who made those changes is critical. The enterprise edition of ApostropheCMS has an important new tool for managing the content pipeline. The Document Versions tool facilitates the use and management of multiple versions of a document (page).

Integrate your technology, including Express, MongoDB, npm, Vue.js, and Node.js, with flexible and native modules content APIs. In addition, Apostrophe provides a single dashboard for every operation so that you will never lack in searching for the perfect tool for your websites. You can also integrate with Jamstack to create robust custom solutions. Currently, it has 3.9k stars on GitHub.

As someone who dabbled in PHP but is mostly a self-taught JS hobbyist dev, I have been using and loving Directus (https://directus.io) since around the time they switched to Node. Development velocity is exceptional with new features released every couple of weeks and bugfixes/enhancements even more frequent, the community and core team is fantastic, and I like the fact that if I ever decide to switch to another CMS for some reason, there's no real import/export process, I just delete the directus_tables in my database, and done.

Pocketbase (https://pocketbase.io/) piqued my interest after seeing it here and on ProductHunt, but I don't think it would be the right call for a client before it hits a stable release.

I also very much enjoyed OctoberCMS (although it has its quirks), but there was a fairly acrimonious split in the community there, and OctoberCMS is no longer open source, and I haven't used the fork (WinterCMS: https://wintercms.com/)

I enjoyed using Apostrophe (https://apostrophecms.com/) for a while, but ultimately I felt like I was doing a lot of stuff in a way that didn't come naturally to me, and although Mongo seems a logical choice when you look at Apostrophe's page model, it worried me a bit that the data would not be easy to move if I ever wanted to.

Check https://apostrophecms.com/.

In this most recent release, in addition to batch operations, and the import / export modules, we have also rolled out an update to the open-graph module for A3, as well as shared additions, fixes, and changes. These updates, and all product related notes can be found on Github Discussions. To see all that is currently in the works or planned for Apostrophe, check out our product roadmap.

Vite and Next.js are both top 5 modern development framework right now. They are both great depending on your use case so we’ll discuss 4 areas: Architecture, main features, developer experience and production readiness. After learning about these we’ll have a better idea of which one is best for your project.

> It’s important to be aware of what you are getting if you go with React, and what you are getting is a far cry from what a framework would offer, with all the corresponding pros and cons.

Would you like to elaborate on that?

In my experience, with something as great, size/ecosystem-wise as React, there will almost always be at least one "mainstream" package for whatever you might want to do with it, that integrates pretty well. Where a lot of things might come out of the box with a framework, with a library I often find myself just needing to install the "right" package, and from there it's pretty much the same.

For example, using https://angular.io/guide/i18n-overview or installing and using https://react.i18next.com/

Or something like https://angular.io/guide/form-validation out of the box, vs installing and using https://formik.org/

Or perhaps https://angular.io/guide/router vs https://reactrouter.com/en/main

Even adding something that's not there out of the box is pretty much the same, like https://primeng.org/ or https://primereact.org/

React will typically have more fragmentation and therefore also choice, but I don't see those two experiences as that different. Updates and version management/supply chain will inevitably be more of a mess with the library, admittedly.

Now, projects like Next https://nextjs.org/ exist and add what some might regard as the missing pieces and work well if you want something opinionated and with lots of features out of the box, but a lot of those features (like SSR) are actually pretty advanced and not always even necessary.

Next.js: For the website and the admin dashboard

Until the time of writing, there is no official example of how to enable runtime environmental variables in a Dockerized Next.js app, as utilizing unstable_noStore would only dynamically evaluate variables on the server (node.js runtime). There is also an interesting discussion regarding this topic on GitHub.

next.js is a very popular React framework. remix-adonisjs includes more functionality through the AdonisJS backend ecosystem, and should be easier to self-host and self-manage.

Cheryl Murphy is not only a dedicated full-stack web developer skilled in technologies like React, Next.js, and NestJs but also a community-driven professional who recently took on the role of volunteer project team lead at Web Dev Path. With a dual Bachelor's degree in Computing and Chemical Engineering from Monash University, Cheryl’s journey in tech is marked by a passion for building accessible solutions and a commitment to fostering community within tech.

For more information, check out this issue.

Remember to start the Next.js server with pnpm dev.