What is DocPad?

DocPad takes files on your computer, such as easy to read markdown documents, and then transforms them into static output that can be deployed anywhere.

Problems with Traditional Web Architectures

Despite all the amazing wonder of current web application architectures, they're mostly:

• Inherently slow

  • Usually built on blocking, live-then-die platforms

  • Performance is an afterthought, re-render every single time (by default, caching can be enabled to improve this)

• Bloated

  • Huge, include-everything codebase, with little or no code re-use (especially between frameworks)

  • Overkill for everything, as no single project will use every feature of the CMS

• Complex

  • Gigantic learning curves, usually measured in months (instead of days or hours)

  • You require CMS/framework developers instead of web developers

• Difficult

  • Setting up a new website is time-consuming and complex

  • Uh oh! "database not installed" or "version invalid"

  • Migrations and deployments are a royal pain in the ass

• Limited

  • WYSIWYG editors are sucky and stupid - why re-invent the wheel? We're already trained with and love our desktop counterparts (Sublime Text, Vim, Byword, etc.)

  • Abstractions on the go? Forget it - you're boxed in, unless you've got a machete

  • Want to use your own pre-processors, markups, and templating engines? Tough: they're handled by the core.

DocPad, an intuitive static-site generator

On the other hand, let's compare that with DocPad, which is:

• Website inherently fast

  • Built on a non-blocking, stay-alive platform

  • Performance from the ground up, re-render only when changes occur (by default, can be configured differently)

• Lightweight

  • Tiny core, with anything that's re-usable abstracted out into modules that other systems can use

  • All non-essential core functionality lives in opt-in plugins

• Simple

  • Tiny learning curve; get started in minutes, become a pro in days

  • Web developers already have everything they need to get started

• Easy

  • Setting up a new website can be done in minutes

  • In-memory database provides querying without the need for a manual installation

  • Migrations and deployments are handled via Git, the tool we are used to

• Robust

  • Use your desktop counterparts to edit content naturally (Sublime Text, Vim, Byword, etc.)

  • Abstraction friendly; code the way you want, how you want

  • Use whatever language, pre-processor, markup, templating engine you want - it's all covered via our opt-in plugins (and if it isn't, it's very easy to add)

Besides this, thanks to the opt-in modular philosophy of Node, we benefit from all the innovations of the community as a whole, including:

• ​Socket.io for realtime communication between the server and client-side

• ​Browserify for being able to share server-side code directly with the client-side

• Native pre-processor rendering such as CoffeeScript, CoffeeKup, Stylus, LessCSS, etc.

So as the Node community grows and innovates, so do we. Awesome.

Comparison Table

For those who like tables, here's the above in table form:

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