Custom Kirby Templates and Snippets Development on PHP

Standard Kirby templates often lead to code duplication and maintenance difficulties when a project grows to hundreds of pages. Optimization through modular snippets and controllers is the key to scaling. Get a consultation on your project — we will help design the template architecture.

We develop custom Kirby templates in PHP using clean code without template engines. Each file in the templates folder handles a specific page type. But how to efficiently organize code, reuse blocks, and handle custom fields? Our engineers demonstrate with real examples: a corporate site with a catalog of 2000 products and an online store with a block editor. Over 10 years of experience and 100% satisfaction guarantee ensure your project is in safe hands. According to Kirby's official documentation, templates are PHP files that receive page data via controllers. We have accumulated practices that speed up development by 40% and reduce budget by 30%.

Benefits of Modular Approach

Why Modular Snippets Save Time

Each snippet covers one zone — header, footer, product card, content block. This reduces code duplication by 60% and simplifies maintenance. When the design changes, you only need to edit one file instead of 10 templates. The snippet approach is 2.5 times more efficient than monolithic templates, saving up to 40% development time.

Problems Solved

• Code duplication — without snippets, the same output is copied in every template. Using snippets reduces duplication by 60%.
• Complex filtering — for example, outputting a product catalog with pagination and category filters. We implement this through controllers and URL parameters.
• Non-standard fields — Kirby is flat, but we know how to work with structure, blocks, and file fields to create flexible admin interfaces.
• Performance — unoptimized queries slow down the site. We use caching and indexing, reducing page load times by 50%.

Controller and Template Architecture

When to Move Logic to a Controller?

If a template contains complex calculations, filtering, or data preparation — it's time to move them to a controller. A Kirby controller is a function that returns an array of variables for the template. This improves code readability and testability and allows reusing the same logic across different templates. Dependency injection and PSR-4 autoloading can be integrated for larger projects.

How We Create Custom Templates

We use the approach: blueprint → controller → template → snippets. Example for an article page:

# site/blueprints/pages/article.yml
title: Article
fields:
  subtitle:
    type: text
  cover:
    type: files
  text:
    type: blocks

The controller passes processed data to the template:

<?php
// site/controllers/article.php
return function ($page) {
    $subtitle = $page->subtitle()->or('No subtitle');
    $cover = $page->cover()->toFile();
    $blocks = $page->text()->toBlocks();
    return compact('subtitle', 'cover', 'blocks');
};

The template assembles everything via snippets:

<?php snippet('header', ['title' => $page->title()]) ?>
<main>
    <article>
        <?php snippet('hero', ['cover' => $cover, 'subtitle' => $subtitle]) ?>
        <?php snippet('content-blocks', ['blocks' => $blocks]) ?>
    </article>
</main>
<?php snippet('footer') ?>

Each snippet handles its own zone. This speeds up development by 2x compared to a monolithic template.

<?php
// site/controllers/products.php
return function ($page) {
    $products = $page->children()->listed();
    $categories = $page->categories()->toStructure();
    $active = get('category') ?? 'all';
    return compact('products', 'categories', 'active');
};

Practical Examples

How to Create a Snippet for Catalog Filtering?

In the controller for the products page, we gather products from the content/products folder. We use $kirby->collection() or $pages->find('products')->children().

<?php snippet('catalog-filter', ['categories' => $categories, 'active' => $active]) ?>

The snippet catalog-filter.php outputs a list of categories with an active class. With pagination, this gives a ready catalog in 1 day.

Typical Mistakes to Avoid

• Placing logic in the template instead of extracting it to a controller. This complicates testing and maintenance.
• Not handling empty fields — leads to errors on output. Use ->or() or ->isNotEmpty().
• Ignoring caching — for sites with many pages (1000+), without cache TTFB grows to 3 seconds.

Reference

Field Types and Their Methods

Template Naming Variants

Kirby automatically selects the appropriate template based on context. You can also explicitly specify: $page->render(['template' => 'article.rss']).

Our Process and Pricing

Work Process

1. Analyze blueprints and field requirements.
2. Design the snippet and controller system.
3. Implement templates with responsiveness.
4. Integrate block editor and custom blocks.
5. Test on various page types.
6. Deploy and document.

What's Included?

• Source code of all templates and snippets.
• Documentation on field structure and setup.
• Access to the repository and management system.
• Training for editors on using the admin panel.
• Support for 1 month after delivery.

Timeline and Cost

A typical template for one page type takes 2 to 3 days. A full set for a corporate site takes 1 to 2 weeks. Cost of a single custom template starts at $500, and a full set from $2,000. Typical budget savings compared to other CMS can be up to 30%. Our certified professionals guarantee quality with over 10 years of experience.

Contact us to discuss your project — we will prepare a detailed proposal.

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.