Nesta

A Ruby CMS for developers and designers. With simple code that's easy to follow, Nesta is easily extended using the Sinatra web framework.

Why use Nesta?

Do you prefer writing and testing HTML and CSS in a text editor, rather than a browser window? Are you happy writing copy in Markdown or Textile? If so, Nesta might be for you.

There's no database to configure – everything is stored in text files. You can review your changes on a local copy of your web site, and copy the files to your server when you're ready to publish (most people use Git).

Features
  • Semantic HTML5.
  • Clean typography.
  • Easy to extend or embed.
  • Support for Google Analytics, Atom feeds, comments (via Disqus), XML sitemaps…

Getting started

 
$ gem install nesta
$ gem install bundler
$ nesta new mysite.com
$ cd mysite.com
$ bundle install
$ nesta demo:content
$ bundle exec mr-sparkle config.ru

Then visit http://localhost:8080...

Recent articles

Who's using Nesta?
  • [Nesta] was a great foundation to start from, and I love working with Sinatra.
    Geoffrey Grosenbach, peepcode.com
  • navel-labs.com is running 100% Nesta. I was thinking of just using Nesta for the cms and delegating the blog to Tumblr or Posterous, but after I wrapped my head around what Nesta can do, I was a total convert.
    Jonathan Penn, navel-labs.com
  • I never realized how completely unacceptable Wordpress templating is until I started to implement the @toutapp blog using @nestacms.
    Tawheed Kader

Documentation

We recommend familiarising yourself by working through Quick start followed by a quick skim of Writing content and then Configuration.