JUNO × Kirby CMS
As a design-driven branding agency, we need room to create the design of our websites and digital tools. With Kirby, we found a CMS that’s easy for clients to use, gives our designers freedom, and is fun for developers. In this article, we describe how it all fits together.
Why?
Flexibility for designers and greater design quality
In web development, we translate the visual ideas of our design team into code. With Kirby, we are not bound by any technical specifications that have to be taken into account in the design. The CMS is so customizable that it offers the design team plenty of scope for design and their own ideas.
UX for clients
The backend (admin panel of the CMS) is – unlike most other CMS – clear and clean. For us, it is important that customers can easily find their way around the backend when maintaining the website. After all, this is part of a good UX. Instead of showing a lot of unused settings and attributes in the backend, content and selection options in the Kirby backend are reduced to the essentials and are thus centrally in the eye.
We like it clean
With Kirby, only what is actually needed is installed in the CMS. There is no unnecessary source code. This pleases not only us, but also search engines.
Kirby for developer
Working on websites that are difficult to customize due to inflexible CMSs is frustrating for developers. Kirby was developed by and for web developers, so they speak the same language. Customizing the CMS according to customer needs is fun. For special requirements, Kirby can be extended with self-developed plugins, some of which we at JUNO already make available as open source to the Kirby community: https://getkirby.com/plugins/junohamburg. Thus, there are no limits to development.
Kirby community
“Have you asked ChatGPT yet?” is not always the solution to all problems, even for tech teams. Sometimes you come across questions where the knowledge and experience of other developers can be helpful. In the Kirby community, such questions are shared and solutions are discussed together.
Lightweight
Kirby is a flat file CMS – which means that all data is stored in the file system – and thus does not rely on a database in the backend. Less data means faster processes and better performance. As a particularly lean system, Kirby is also convincing in terms of sustainability.
Security
Kirby was developed by a German developer team and is GDPR compliant. Due to its file-based architecture, Kirby eliminates one of the main attack vectors: SQL injections. Widely used CMS software such as WordPress, Typo3 or Drupal have significantly more complex systems than Kirby and therefore offer more opportunities for security vulnerabilities.
Support your local business
Kirby supports educational projects, social and environmental and non-profit organizations with free licenses. This means that young developers can gain experience with industry-standard projects on a shoestring budget. Worth supporting, we would say!
For the development of modular design systems for corporate websites, Kirby is the best CMS for us. It allows maximum customization without compromising on the designs. With regular updates and a dedicated developer team, Kirby is constantly evolving to meet the ever-changing demands of the industry.
Well done, Kirby!
– Author Annika Vennemann is web developer at JUNO.