Sparktype
a CMS and SSG that runs entirely in the browser
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Hi HN,After trying to teach a non-technical friend how to manage a Jekyll site I decided there must be a way to make building a site with a SSG easier. Options like Decap, Contentful etc. do make it a bit easier but still take lots of tech knowledge to set up.So I built Sparktype, a browser-based CMS that outputs statically-generated HTML and CSS. My goal is for it to be as easy to use as Substack or Medium, while providing all the benefits of a static site generator including openness, simplicity, speed, security and ownership.It handles most things that you'd need from a CMS, including creating pages, image resizing, menu management, tags, collections, listings etc. I've only made two themes so far, but I'm working on a theme store and the ability to import custom themes.Content is saved as plain Markdown + YAML frontmatter and JSON config files, so there's no lock-in and content is easily portable to other platforms. Generated sites can be exported as a zip file to upload via FTP, committed to Github or published via Netlify API.I'm working on cross-platform client apps using Tauri which will enable more publishing options as its not limited by what can be done in a client-only environment.The way the system works means that the Web doesn't need to be the only interface to the content - here's a simple Go-based CLI client that bypasses the HTML altogether https://github.com/sparktype-project/sparktype/tree/main/st-...It's very early days and there are still plenty of bugs, but I'm posting now to hopefully get feedback and see what people think. Please do let me know!
HN · launched Nov 4, 2025 · 48 upvotes (top 17%) · 0 views
Niche: static site generators · 16 launches, 0 in the last 7 days · Explore this niche →
Category and tags
- Horizontal
- Dev tools
- Developer
- Not AI
- Hobby / open-source project
Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗
More like this: all 16 launches in static site generators →
Could you build this?
Yes An in-browser static site generator and CMS can be assembled using browser storage (IndexedDB/OPFS), a client-side templating engine, and GitHub/GitLab API integrations.
Discussion
11 comments analyzed.
Competitors mentioned: Publii, Jekyll, 11ty, Astro, Ghost
Concerns raised: Mobile doesn't work well, FTP support requires proxy service, Credentials not persisted across browser sessions, Authentication error with atob decoding
Feature requests: Environment variable import or auth server, Auto light/dark theme adjustment, FTP publishing support, Pre-configured template sites for easy setup
Competitors
Other products that read as similar to this one : 232 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #49 of 233 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 4 days after the earliest competitor.
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- PageForge · ph · 2026-09-12 · 3 upvotes · similarity 0.44
- Mlut · hn · 2026-02-25 · 5 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Foundry: a Markdown-first CMS written in Go · hn · 2026-03-27 · 31 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Lambda 0.2 · hn · 2026-03-24 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Ferrite · hn · 2026-01-11 · 241 upvotes · similarity 0.41
- Minimalist library to generate SVG views of scientific data · hn · 2026-03-23 · 47 upvotes · similarity 0.41
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