Why Chinaski
Why Chinaski instead of what you have
Most content systems ask you to trade away control, longevity, or simplicity. Chinaski is built for operators who don't want to make that trade.
View on GitHubHow it compares
vs. WordPress
WordPress runs PHP and MySQL on every request, requires constant plugin updates, and has a large attack surface. Chinaski's output is static — there's nothing to attack, hack, or keep patched in production.
vs. Hugo, Jekyll, Eleventy
Static generators produce similar output, but they're developer tools — content lives in Markdown files, the build pipeline requires a local toolchain, and there's no admin UI. Chinaski gives you a real CMS editing experience with the same static output.
vs. headless CMS platforms
Headless platforms like Contentful and Sanity are SaaS — someone else controls your data, your pricing, and your uptime. Chinaski is self-hosted: your data is a SQLite file on your server.
Honest answers
What can't Chinaski do?
Chinaski is not a good fit for highly dynamic sites — user-generated content, real-time feeds, complex e-commerce, or anything requiring request-time database queries. It's built for content sites: marketing pages, documentation, blogs, and brochure sites.
Is it ready for production?
Yes. Chinaski is in production use on several sites. It is not at version 1.0, which means the API and admin UI may change, but the core — build system, block editor, translation pipeline — is stable.
What happens if the project is abandoned?
Your site is flat HTML files on a server you control. If Chinaski stopped being maintained tomorrow, your live site would keep working indefinitely. You'd lose the admin interface, but not your content or your audience.
How do I get support?
Open an issue on GitHub. There is no paid support tier, no forum, and no Discord. If you find a bug or have a feature request, the GitHub issue tracker is the right place.
See the full feature set
Complete setup, theming, and API documentation lives at docs.chinaski.net.
Read the documentation