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Cyberbaser
🧠 Research & Foundations phase — building the KB from the ground up. See the roadmap →

02 · CMS evaluation framework

Updated

The assignment

Section titled “The assignment”

The vault has 20+ CMS options researched at varying depths. The current assumption is Decap CMS with Open Authoring. Your job: challenge that assumption. Evaluate the top candidates against cyberbaser’s specific requirements and narrow to 2-3 finalists with evidence. No cheerleading — if Decap is the wrong choice, say so.

The CMS IS the zero-git contribution path — the make-or-break feature for non-technical contributors. Wrong choice here = wrong contribution UX for years.

What to investigate

Section titled “What to investigate”

  1. Decap CMS (Open Authoring) — the incumbent. Evaluate: does Open Authoring actually work reliably in 2026? What’s the maintenance status? How does it handle Obsidian-flavored markdown in the editor? Can it preview wikilinks, callouts, embeds? What are the known failure modes? Decap docs · Open Authoring docs

  2. Sveltia CMS — the modern Decap fork. How does it differ from Decap? Better editor UX? Better Obsidian syntax handling? Active maintenance? Does it support Open Authoring? What’s the migration path from Decap?

  3. EmDash CMS — Cloudflare-built, Astro-native, AI-agent-first. Content stored as portable text (structured JSON, not HTML). Does portable text preserve Obsidian semantics during round-trip? Can an Obsidian vault be the source of truth if EmDash stores content as JSON? What’s the auth model? Cloudflare announcement · GitHub

  4. TinaCMS — inline visual editing, self-hosted auth, git providers, Astro integration. Does inline editing work with Obsidian markdown? What’s the self-hosting complexity? How does git co-authoring work? Astro integration · Self-hosted auth

  5. Pages CMS — minimal git-backed CMS. Simpler than the others — is “simpler” better for v1? What’s the contribution UX compared to Decap’s Open Authoring?

  6. Evaluation criteria matrix. For each CMS, score on: git-backed round-trip fidelity, Obsidian markdown preview quality, inline editing capability, Open Authoring (fork-and-PR for anonymous contributors), self-hosted auth, mobile editing, Astro integration depth, community activity + maintenance trajectory, license compatibility with AGPL.

  7. The “no CMS” option. What if cyberbaser just uses GitHub’s built-in “Edit this page” + Prose editor + PR workflow? Is a dedicated CMS actually needed, or is it over-engineering the contribution path?

Context to read first

Section titled “Context to read first”

What success looks like

Section titled “What success looks like”
  • Comparison table with columns: CMS name, git-backed (Y/N), Open Authoring (Y/N), Obsidian markdown preview (Y/N/partial), inline editing (Y/N), self-hosted auth (Y/N), Astro integration (native/plugin/manual), maintenance status (active/maintained/stale), license
  • Top 2-3 recommendation with 1-paragraph rationale each
  • Killer flaws for each rejected candidate (not just “it’s not as good” — specific deal-breakers)
  • The “no CMS” counter-argument evaluated honestly
  • Validity: this analysis holds until [date or condition — e.g., “until EmDash exits beta” or “until Decap’s Open Authoring gets a major rewrite”]

What this does NOT decide

Section titled “What this does NOT decide”