A quick investigation using the almighty Google search engine told me that Tumblr could be it. Unfortunately, integrating with my own website learned that this platform didn’t meet my requirements.

There has to exist a CMS system which uses the latest technologies.

I want a blog which runs on node.js and mongoDB!

Wordpress

Next one on my list was the famously known Wordpress. But on my first attempt to integrate this one, I got very annoyed by all the boilerplate that comes with this integration.

Wordpress introduces itself as something very easy to setup. But as you follow their docs step by step, you need to:

• download a bunch of files and include them in your project
• set-up a mySql database

And on top of that..it’s written in PHP! This reminds me at the old days.

All this frustration brought me back to the reality of 2015: isn’t there a CMS which uses the latest technologies? I want a blog which runs on node.js and mongoDB! I cannot be the first one with this frustration!

BAM!

That’s the point that the almighty Google Search Engine introduced me to PencilBlue

A first investigation throughout the web gives me a first impression:

• Nice, modern look!
• Open source
• People seem to say that it’s the modern version of Wordpress

For the sake of completeness, my google search didn’t only mention PencilBlue. This very interesting blogpost compares all Node-based CMS systems which were hot in 2015:

• Ghost
• Keystone
• Apostrophe 2
• PencilBlue
• Buckets.io

Buckets.io and Ghost look promising as well, but I’ll check out PencilBlue!

Written by Jonathan Dierckens who lives and works in Ghent, trying to build useful things.