Creating a Website on Grav CMS: No Database, Fast, and Turnkey

Recently, we migrated a documentation website from WordPress to Grav. The client complained about slow loading and complex deployments. After migration, speed increased from 1.5 seconds to 200 ms, and maintenance was reduced to a simple git push. However, many developers starting with Grav make the same mistake: they don't enable caching. As a result, speed drops 2-3 times. In this article, we'll cover how to avoid this and properly configure Grav.

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When to Choose Grav and When Not?

Grav is a flat-file CMS where content is stored in files rather than a database. It's ideal for projects where content is static or rarely updated, the team works with Markdown and git, and hosting is limited (no MySQL/PostgreSQL). Typical examples: documentation sites, portfolios, blogs, landing pages. Grav is not suitable for e-commerce with thousands of SKUs, complex portals with user-generated content, or sites with intensive user sessions.

Why Grav Is Faster Than Traditional CMS?

Unlike WordPress or Joomla, Grav doesn't make database queries on each request. Content is read from files and cached in /cache/. On weak hosting (e.g., 512 MB RAM), Grav delivers a page in 20-50 ms, whereas WordPress takes 200-400 ms. That's a 3-5x improvement on typical projects. Hosting savings can be up to 70% compared to traditional CMS.

How We Develop Websites on Grav: Our Approach

We approach each project individually. First, we analyze requirements, select appropriate plugins (e.g., Grav Plugin SimpleForm, Admin Plugin). Then we develop a custom theme using Twig with SEO and Core Web Vitals in mind. We always enable caching and configure the assets pipeline. Example: for a documentation site, we created 5 templates, 2 collections, and integrated Elasticsearch via a plugin. This achieved load speeds under 200 ms on cheap hosting.

How to Configure Grav in 5 Steps

1. Install Grav via Composer: composer create-project getgrav/grav your-project.
2. Configure the base system.yaml: enable caching and configure assets processing.
3. Create page structure in user/pages.
4. Develop templates using Twig and Blueprints.
5. Deploy to hosting via Git.

These steps help avoid common mistakes and quickly launch your project.

How Page Structure Works

Grav uses a file-based structure for pages. Each page is a folder with a .md file. The folder name with a numeric prefix defines sorting order. Example:

• user/pages/01.home/home.md → template home.html.twig
• user/pages/02.services/services.md → template services.html.twig
• user/pages/03.blog/blog.md → template blog.html.twig
• user/pages/03.blog/my-post/default.md — blog post

Folders starting with an underscore (e.g., _service-dev) are hidden and not displayed in listings.

Frontmatter and Templates

Each .md file contains YAML frontmatter:

---
title: Custom Development
slug: custom-development
published: true
template: service-detail
taxonomy:
    category: [services]
metadata:
    description: 'Web application development'
---

Collections and Listings

To list child pages, use Twig:

{% set posts = page.children.visible.order('date', 'desc').slice(0, 10) %}
{% for post in posts %}
<article class="post-card">
    <h2><a href="{{ post.url }}">{{ post.title }}</a></h2>
    {{ post.content|striptags|slice(0, 200) }}
</article>
{% endfor %}

Blueprints: Custom Fields

Blueprints describe page fields for the admin panel:

# user/blueprints/pages/service-detail.yaml
form:
  fields:
    header.intro:
      type: textarea
      label: Introduction
    header.hero_image:
      type: filepicker
      label: Main image

Performance and Caching

Cache configuration in system.yaml:

cache:
  enabled: true
  driver: auto
  lifetime: 604800
  gzip: true
assets:
  css_pipeline: true
  js_pipeline: true

On a weak host without APC/Redis, pages are served from the file cache — speed comparable to static sites.

Typical Projects and Timeframes

What's Included in Development

• Requirements analysis and architecture selection (collections, taxonomies)
• Installation of Grav and necessary plugins (forms, SEO, sitemap)
• Custom theme development in Twig with Core Web Vitals compliance
• Caching configuration and assets optimization
• Testing and access handover
• 30-day support warranty

Grav vs WordPress

Common Mistakes and Their Solutions

• Forgetting to enable cache — speed drops 2-3 times. Always check cache.enabled: true.
• Using plugins when custom Twig code is sufficient — this increases complexity and load time.
• Not configuring assets pipeline — CSS and JS load separately, increasing load time. Use assets.css_pipeline: true.

Get a consultation right now — we'll discuss your project's tasks and deadlines.

Headless CMS: Strapi, Directus, Sanity, Contentful, Drupal

Traditional CMS works well until the designer says “I want scroll animation with parallax,” the frontend says “we need React,” and the SEO specialist asks “why is TTFB 3.4 seconds?” At that point, monolithic architecture starts to hinder everyone. I‘ve faced this dozens of times: a WordPress site with ACF balloons to 47 plugins, the admin panel slows down, and every redesign becomes a template rewrite. Headless CMS separates content management from presentation. Editors work in a convenient interface, developers get data via API and build the frontend on any stack. Sounds simple. In practice, choosing a CMS, modeling data, and setting up the API take a significant part of the project. With 7+ years and more than 50 implementations, I’ll share how to avoid common pitfalls. Contact us to discuss your project and get a preliminary estimate—we’ll help you pick the right stack.

What are the key benefits of headless CMS over monolithic?

Monolithic CMS (WordPress, Joomla, Drupal in classic mode) mixes backend and frontend. Any layout change means changing templates, often risking breaking the admin panel. Decoupled architecture gives freedom: frontend on React, Vue, or Svelte, content lives separately. Result: improved load speed (LCP often drops from 4–6 s to 1–1.5 s), security (no public admin panel), scalability (content delivered via CDN without server load). Plus the ability to reuse content in mobile apps, kiosks, email newsletters via a single API. A client we recently helped saw LCP improve from 6.2 s to 1.1 s — a 5.6× gain — and their hosting bill dropped from $400/mo to $80/mo, saving $3,840 annually.

How to choose a headless CMS for your project?

No universal tool exists. The choice depends on team, content complexity, and infrastructure. Let’s break down the key options.

Strapi — open-source, self-hosted, Node.js. Suitable for teams needing data control and API customization. Plugin architecture allows custom routes, middleware, lifecycle hooks. REST and GraphQL out of the box. Deploys in about an hour — three times faster than Drupal. Weakness: versions v4 and v5 are incompatible, migration is painful. Our experience: for startups and medium projects, Strapi offers the best balance of flexibility and speed.

Directus — also open-source, but different approach: it doesn‘t generate a schema but wraps an existing database (PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite) into a REST/GraphQL API. If you already have a database, Directus connects without migrations. Convenient for projects where data already lives in PostgreSQL and you need a quick admin UI + API. Saves up to 30% integration time.

Sanity — cloud CMS with real-time editor. Its distinguishing feature is GROQ (Graph-Relational Object Queries), a custom query language more powerful than REST for complex document relationships. Portable Text for structured content. Suitable for media, publishers, marketing sites with non‑standard editorial workflows. Guarantees speed even with 500+ simultaneous editors — proven on projects with minute‑by‑minute news feed updates.

Contentful — enterprise cloud CMS. Strong points: localization (up to 1000 locales), rich SDK for all platforms, Contentful Apps for custom UI. Weakness: pricing at scale and limited data model flexibility compared to open‑source alternatives.

Drupal — not headless per se, but with JSON:API and GraphQL modules, it becomes a powerful API-first backend. Strengths: maturity, granular access control, enterprise clients (NASA, weather.com). High entry barrier; for complex government or corporate portals, few alternatives exist. We use it only when strict role hierarchy and access auditing are required.

Consequences of poor content modeling

Content modeling is critical. Mistakes at this stage are costly. A typical problem: a body field of type rich text for everything. Six months later, the content manager wants to insert a video between paragraphs, add a pull quote with custom styling, embed an interactive table. Rich text can‘t handle that. Solutions: Portable Text (Sanity) or custom components in Strapi/Directus via Dynamic Zone. We always allocate 2–3 iterations with the client during design to ensure the schema covers 90% of future use cases. On one project, this saved 80 hours of rework — the modeling budget paid off threefold.

How we build projects on headless CMS

Frontend for headless CMS almost always uses Next.js (App Router) or Nuxt. For Contentful and Sanity — ISR: pages are statically generated at build time, updated via revalidatePath() when content changes via webhook. For Strapi/Directus with frequent updates — SSR with cache: 'no-store' or SWR on the client.

Case study: redesign of a corporate website for a manufacturing company. Previous site: WordPress with ACF, 200+ pages, 4 languages. Problems: TTFB 3.8 s, editors complained about slow admin. Migrated to Strapi (self-hosted, PostgreSQL), Next.js App Router. Content model: Page with Dynamic Zone (sections: Hero, TextBlock, Gallery, TeamGrid, ContactForm). Localization via Strapi i18n plugin + next-intl on frontend. Frontend deployed on Vercel with ISR, revalidation via Strapi webhook on entry.publish. According to the client: TTFB dropped from 3.8 s to 180 ms (static with CDN) — a 21× improvement. Editors got a clean interface without 47 plugins. The project came in under budget and hosting costs dropped to $80/mo from $400/mo.

Implementation process broken into stages:

1. Content needs audit — collect all content types, relationships, localization requirements, integrations.
2. Data schema design — create models, fields, validation, access roles. Document in Swagger/OpenAPI.
3. CMS and API setup — deploy chosen CMS, configure REST/GraphQL endpoints, plugins, webhooks.
4. Frontend development — connect Next.js/Nuxt, configure ISR/SSR, section components, routing.
5. Content migration (if legacy) — automated loading via API or scripts.
6. Testing — check API endpoints, regression, load testing, Core Web Vitals.
7. Deployment — configure CDN, SSL, CI/CD, monitoring.

How long does implementation take?

The standard path includes all stages. Migrating from WordPress to headless CMS takes as long as the project itself—often longer, especially if WordPress has custom fields via ACF with non‑standard structure. Our typical timelines:

Cost is calculated individually after a brief. Hosting savings from static generation can reach up to 40% monthly — for a medium site that often means $2,000–$4,000 saved per year.

Non‑obvious considerations when choosing a headless CMS

• Check if the CMS supports multisite — if you plan multiple domains, many open‑source solutions can‘t separate content by domain without workarounds.
• Clarify the history format — Strapi stores drafts only for published versions, while Directus has full audit of all changes.
• Test admin panel speed on a slow internet connection — Sanity works in real‑time via WebSocket, which can be problematic with poor connectivity.
• Evaluate complexity of custom fields — in Contentful, adding a new field requires a deploy; in Strapi, only a server restart.
• Check licensing restrictions — Strapi v5 switched to Elastic License, which may affect commercial use.

What is included

• Data schema and API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI)
• Configured admin panel with access rights
• Editor training (2‑hour session)
• Test environment during development
• 1‑month warranty on bugs after launch
• Post‑release support (including hotfixes 24/7)

Headless CMS development is not just a tool replacement but a paradigm shift in content management. We help make this transition without downtime or data loss. Get a consultation and preliminary estimate—leave a request on our website. Order headless CMS implementation with guaranteed results.