WonderCMS

WonderCMS is a minimalistic, flat‑file content management system written in pure PHP. From a technical standpoint it eliminates the need for a database server, web‑server configuration beyond standard PHP support, or any runtime dependencies. Content is stored in simple UTF‑8 text files (YAML/Markdown or plain PHP arrays), and the engine parses these files on every request, caching the parsed results in a small JSON blob to keep memory usage low. The core engine is only about 50 KB of code, which means it can be dropped into any LAMP/LEMP stack with a single unzip operation and immediately serves dynamic pages without any compile‑time steps.

Architecture

• Language & Runtime: PHP 8.1+ (fully backward‑compatible with 7.4) running on any web server that supports PHP as a module or CGI.
• Data Layer: Flat files stored under content/ – each article, page or taxonomy is a separate file. The system uses an internal cache/ directory for JSON‑encoded metadata and optional compiled templates.
• Templating: A tiny, built‑in template engine based on PHP’s output buffering. Templates are plain .php files that can include other templates and access a global $page object. No external templating libraries are required, keeping the footprint minimal.
• Routing: A single‑file front controller (index.php) maps URLs to content files using a simple globbing algorithm. Custom routes can be defined in config/routes.php if needed.
• Admin Interface: A lightweight MVC‑style admin panel built with vanilla PHP and minimal CSS/JS. It serves as both a content editor (in‑place Markdown editing with live preview) and an extension manager.

Core Capabilities

• REST‑like API: /api/v1/ exposes endpoints for retrieving, creating, updating and deleting content via JSON. Authentication is token‑based (X-API-Key) allowing integration with external services or headless front‑ends.
• Webhooks: Plugins can register callbacks for events such as post.published, page.updated, or user.logged_in. These are invoked synchronously during the request lifecycle.
• Plugin System: A hook‑based architecture lets developers drop a PHP file into plugins/. Each plugin registers hooks in its own namespace, making it trivial to add features such as SEO metadata generators, analytics integrations, or custom form handlers.
• Theming: Themes are simple directory structures under themes/. A theme declares a theme.json with metadata and optionally overrides core templates. The admin panel includes a one‑click theme installer that pulls packages from the official repository.

Deployment & Infrastructure

• Self‑Hosting: No database, no external services – just a web server and PHP. Suitable for shared hosting, VPS, Docker, or even static site generators that support dynamic PHP execution.
• Containerization: Official Docker image (wondercms/wondercms) bundles Nginx, PHP‑FPM and the CMS files. A docker-compose.yml example is provided in the repo, making it trivial to spin up a local dev environment or CI pipeline.
• Scalability: Because the CMS serves static files after initial parsing, it can be fronted by a CDN. The lightweight cache ensures low memory usage even under high concurrency. Horizontal scaling is achieved by replicating the file system across nodes (e.g., using NFS or a distributed object store) and keeping the cache in Redis if desired.

Integration & Extensibility

• External APIs: The REST API can be consumed by headless front‑ends (React, Vue, Svelte) or static site generators that support dynamic content fetching. OAuth2 is supported via a third‑party plugin for authentication against external identity providers.
• Webhooks: External services can listen to content events, enabling automated deployments, search‑index updates, or notification workflows.
• Customization: Developers can extend the core by writing plugins that hook into any lifecycle event, modify request/response objects, or replace entire modules. The source code is fully open‑source (GPLv3), encouraging community contributions.

Developer Experience

• Configuration: Minimal – a single config.php with path constants and API key generation. All advanced settings are optional and documented in the online docs.
• Documentation: The official docs cover installation, API usage, plugin development, and migration scripts. Inline code comments are plentiful, and the GitHub repo hosts a wiki with best‑practice guides.
• Community: Over 50 contributors and thousands of downloads. The project maintains an active issue tracker, a Discord channel for real‑time support, and a quarterly newsletter.

Use Cases

• Personal Blogs: Fast page load times, zero database overhead make it ideal for solo developers who want a lightweight blogging platform.
• Documentation Sites: Markdown support, in‑place editing, and API access allow teams to maintain internal docs or public APIs with minimal friction.
• Static Site Generation: Use WonderCMS as a headless CMS to feed content into static site generators, then deploy the generated HTML to an edge CDN.
• Prototype & MVP: Quickly spin up a functional website or product landing page without provisioning a database, ideal for rapid prototyping.

Advantages

• Performance: Zero‑dependency architecture yields 100/100 PageSpeed scores on both desktop and mobile; the engine parses only a handful of