Builder.io, a visual development and headless CMS company, writes about JavaScript, Qwik, React, AI tooling, and Figma-to-code workflows.
HN links it mostly for the product itself. Commenters call the visual editor slick, question its bold CMS claim, and note the core is closed source.
Are you cool with JS frameworks?
If so, you can use a higher level of abstraction that takes care of the CSS for you. If you just want to mock something up, you can use a pre-built UI system / component framework and just put together UIs declaratively, without having to worry about the underlying CSS or HTML at all. Examples include https://mui.com/ and https://chakra-ui.com/ and https://ant.design/
Really easy to put together a quick UI that way. (As a frontend dev, this is how I prefer to put together UIs whenever I can.)
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MUI also has a low-code dashboard builder: https://mui.com/toolpad/
And Vercel (creators of Next.js) is betaing an AI generated UI: https://vercel.com/blog/announcing-v0-generative-ui
Or https://www.builder.io/
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If you don't want to use a JS framework (and I don't blame you), Tailwind is the modern version of simple declarative UIs, but it's lower-level than the previous option. https://tailwindcss.com/
Bootstrap is still around too: https://getbootstrap.com/
Lesser known options:
https://semantic-ui.com/
https://get.foundation/
https://opensource.adobe.com/spectrum-css/ or https://opensource.adobe.com/spectrum-web-components/
This is really slick! A really fluid and intuitive interface.
We use https://react-page.github.io/ (also MIT licensed) extensively at my startup; it attacks the same problem, and it's been incredibly effective (and hackable!).
Generally speaking, owning your own CMS data, in your own database, with a well-documented JSON data format, and adding the ability to take any React component you've written (that itself may interact with your own data) and make it not only reusable as part of a content editing system but also WYSIWIG, opens up a huge number of opportunities - including adding your own logic to transform content before display.
https://builder.io is another alternative that's very effective at the adapting-custom-components-to-WYSIWIG side of things, but does keep the data in its own cloud storage.
I'm really excited to see innovation in this space, and I'll be following Puck closely!
Classes generally point you towards writing more performant code. Factory functions allow you to achieve the same performance, you just have to be a bit more careful not to cause a depot :)
For example,
1. field declarations [1] make sure that the fields are always initialized in the same order. That way most of your functions end up monomorphic, instead of being polymorphic [2]
2. Method declarations are also (almost) free, since you only pay for them once, during class initialization.
You also get a few other niceties such as private properties. You can emulate private properties with closures in factory functions but V8 has a hard time optimizing, unfortunately.
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[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Classes#class_body
[2]: https://www.builder.io/blog/monomorphic-javascript
Not at all - you can easily balance your usage of Builder and your own code as much as you like. You can put Builder content within your code components, and you can easily use your code components within the Builder content.
Take a look at this for a real example you can play with on how you can have some pages powered by Builder and some fully in your react/typescript code https://codesandbox.io/s/github/BuilderIO/builder/tree/master/examples/react
And then see this guide for how to use your own react/typescript components in the builder content https://builder.io/c/docs/custom-react-components
And don't hesitate to reach out if you have any more detailed questions about this - steve@builder.io
Builder.io | San Francisco, CA or Remote | Software Engineer, Tech Support, Head of User Operations
Builder.io (https://www.builder.io) is a visual editor and CMS that connects to any platform or tech stack allowing anyone to create and edit content visually.
We're a small team of experienced developers backed by leading Silicon Valley VCs.
We currently have 3 open roles:
- Software Engineer (React + Node.js): https://angel.co/company/builder-io/jobs/711157-full-stack-engineer
- Tech Support: https://angel.co/company/builder-io/jobs/694201-technical-specialist
- Head of User Operations: https://angel.co/company/builder-io/jobs/709276-head-of-user-operations
https://www.builder.io/ can drop into existing websites, static and framework. Pretty cool stuff, though unfortunately the interesting part is closed source. You can request the page once from their API and then save it for serving (rather than using their default method / setup).
https://grapesjs.com is an open source option, but will require some investment to get it working for your situation.
There is also Wordpress, Squarespace, and Webflow. Webflow has a CMS section. Netlify has some options here too, CMS system with a web UI.
I personally use Hugo (https://gohugo.io) and Webflow. Planning to use something with grapes+hugo to replace webflow.