cecil

A simple and powerful content-driven static site generator.

Cecil is a command-line PHP application that merges Markdown pages, media and Twig templates to generate a static website.

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Features

• Fast & secure: no database, no server-side code, static files offer a minimal attack surface
• Files only: content is stored in flat Markdown files with a front matter
• Customizable: powered by Twig templates, with themes support
• Multiple generators: pagination, taxonomies, sitemap, RSS feeds, robots.txt and redirects are generated automatically
• Image optimization: responsive images, WebP and AVIF conversion, compression
• Assets processing: compile, minify and fingerprint CSS and JavaScript
• Multilingual: content localization and template translation
• SEO-friendly: meta tags, Open Graph, X (Twitter) cards and structured data
• No installation: download a single file and run it with PHP
• Easy to deploy: in minutes on Netlify, Vercel, statichost and others
• Open source: licensed under EUPL-1.2 and developed on GitHub

Quick Start

Requirements: PHP 8.3+ and a terminal.

1. Download Cecil

   curl -LO https://github.com/Cecilapp/Cecil/releases/latest/download/cecil.phar
   

2. Create a new site (in an empty directory containing cecil.phar)

   php cecil.phar new:site
   

3. Add a page, then edit it in pages/

   php cecil.phar new:page
   

4. Preview at http://localhost:8000

   php cecil.phar serve
   

5. Build and copy the content of the _site directory to any web server

   php cecil.phar build
   

Read the Quick Start documentation page for more details.

Or start from a starter kit and deploy a ready-to-use blog in one click:

Installation

Download cecil.phar from your terminal:

curl -LO https://github.com/Cecilapp/Cecil/releases/latest/download/cecil.phar

Other installation methods:

• Homebrew: brew install cecilapp/tap/cecil
• Scoop: scoop install https://cecil.app/scoop/cecil.json
• Standalone binaries (no PHP required): cecil-linux-x64, cecil-macos-arm64, cecil-windows-x64.exe, etc.
• Download page (all releases)

See the Installation documentation page.

Usage

Common commands:

php cecil.phar help      # Get help
php cecil.phar new:site  # Create a new website
php cecil.phar new:page  # Create a new page
php cecil.phar serve     # Preview your website locally
php cecil.phar build     # Build your website
php cecil.phar doctor    # Diagnose your site configuration

See the Commands documentation page.

Contributing

See Contributing.

Thanks goes to these wonderful people: