DocPad – rapid web development

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.

DocPad aims to streamline your web development process allowing you to craft powerful static sites quicker than ever before.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• 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.
• Write your documents in any language, markup, templating engine, or pre-processor you wish. You can even mix and match them when needed by combining their extensions in a rails-like fashion (e.g. coffee-with-some-eco.js.coffee.eco)
• Changes to your website are automatically recompiled through a built-in watch system.
• Add metadata to the top of your files to be used by templating engines to display non-standard information such as titles and descriptions for your documents.
• Display custom listings of content with our powerful Query Engine available to your templating engines.
• Abstract out generic headers and footers into layouts using our nested layout system.
• For simple static websites easily deploy your generated website to any web server like apache or github pages. For dynamic projects deploy them to servers like heroku to take advantage of custom routing with express.js.
• Built-in server to save you from having to startup your own, for dynamic deployments this even supports things like clean urls, custom routes and server-side logic.
• Robust architecture and powerful plugin system means that you are never boxed in. Unlike traditional CMS systems, you can always extend DocPad to do whatever you need it to do, and you can even write to bundle common custom functionality and distribute them through the amazing node package manager npm.
• Built-in support for dynamic documents (e.g. search pages, signup forms, etc), so you can code pages that change on each request by just adding dynamic: true to your document’s meta data (exposes the express.js req and res objects to your templating engine).
• You can use it standalone, or even easily include it within your existing systems with the software’s API.

Website: docpad.bevry.me
Support: FAQ, GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Benjamin Lupton
License: MIT License

DocPad is written in CoffeeScript. Learn CoffeeScript with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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