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The current public release is Nocterra 0.99.5. This release continues work on caching, metadata, blog handling, language support and site configuration.
Download Nocterra or read the documentation.
Work for the next release is centred around the Event add-on, with supporting changes for handlers and command-line/request execution flow. Smaller fixes to caching, language handling, blog URLs, link processing and layout behaviour may be included when ready.
Nocterra is a general-purpose, freedom-respecting Content Management System for building fast, accessible and maintainable websites.
It is used for public websites, business websites, restaurants, professional practices, foundation websites, project websites, editorial websites, documentation and custom web applications. Nocterra is chosen when a website should remain understandable, portable and under the maintainer's control, without unnecessary database overhead, public administration backends, bulky editors, shortcode layers or large plugin stacks.
Nocterra was developed from practical website work over many years. That background still shapes the project. It is built for websites that should remain independent and maintainable, without forcing visitors or maintainers into unnecessary accounts, tracking systems, database-heavy infrastructure or subscription-driven theme and plugin stacks.
Nocterra is suitable for ordinary public and commercial websites as well as specialised sites: small businesses, restaurants, professional practices, foundations, projects, editorial websites, documentation and custom web applications. It is built for websites that should remain understandable, portable and maintainable over time.
Nocterra is extremely fast. Pages load almost instantly for both large and small websites. It can provide an excellent visitor experience when run on a powerful dedicated server, shared hosting, or even an Atom-powered home NAS.
Nocterra avoids the common pattern where a website depends on a large visual editor, shortcode system, page builder, theme framework and many plugins that each have their own settings, editors, update cycles and subscription models. More of the website behaviour can be kept in the site structure, stylesheets, configuration and controlled PHP code.
Nocterra is built around privacy. It does not include visitor tracking, tracking cookies, telemetry, advertising scripts or external analytics. A normal Nocterra website can be published without asking visitors to accept cookies or agree to tracking systems before they can read a page.
Built with accessibility in mind. Excellent experience on mobile networks due to the low bandwidth requirement.
Nocterra can be used for much more than simple pages. It can generate structured websites with multilingual content, blogs, documentation, navigation, breadcrumbs, sitemaps, metadata and custom output. Many things that require plugins or heavy configuration in other CMSes are part of Nocterra's normal website model.
Nocterra does not need a public login screen, online editor, database administration panel or plugin marketplace for normal website publishing. Because those components are not part of the normal publishing model, Nocterra avoids several common attack paths found in many database-driven CMS installations.
Every page can be extended by integrating PHP code. Built-in support for add-ons and prepared for multiple storage engines.
Nocterra is not designed as a large online administration system. It does not need a database for normal page serving, does not require visitor accounts and does not add telemetry or tracking components of its own.
That makes it less suitable for every project, but very suitable for websites where independence, low overhead and predictable behaviour are important.
Nocterra is free software. The CMS itself is released under the GNU Affero General Public License, and the public website is built from files and configuration that can be inspected, copied, backed up and moved.
That helps avoid common forms of lock-in: a website does not depend on a closed hosted platform, a subscription-only theme, a proprietary page builder or a database structure that only one vendor understands.
This does not mean every Nocterra website has to look or work the same. A site can still have its own design, content structure and custom functionality. The point is that the website remains technically understandable and portable.