The Website OS

Boomla is a simple website builder

People like you love that it feels like playing lego.

There is NO:

• admin page - where you have to manage menu trees, categories, etc.
• database
• Linux

Instead there IS:

• drag-and-drop
• undo button - feel free to experiment
• files only - on a special filesytem designed for websites

Need a custom app? Boomla is also an application platform, and that makes it 10x simpler to program to compared to Content Management Systems. Any web developer (yes including your neighbour’s son) can write custom apps for you. This means we also have an ever growing collection of apps you can install.

Watch this video in full screen mode to get an idea about what it’s like to use Boomla:

Boomla is a platform for building websites.

Even though you only know HTML/CSS, with Boomla you will be able to build dynamic websites. You handle the content, Boomla handles the dynamism. Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

Build a custom dynamic website with HTML & CSS

Build a page layout with HTML/CSS, then install and add some apps to it like a menu and a gallery. The complexity of creating such a dynamic website is much like creating a static HTML files. You’ll love it.

Example theme

HTML

<div class="-wrapper">
    <div class="-menu">
        <? inline("/menu") ?>
    </div>
    <div class="-main o1-placeholder" data-o1-placeholder="1">
        <? inline(":1:c") ?>
    </div>
<div>

CSS

body {
    background: lightskyblue;
}
.-wrapper {
    background: white;
    width: 900px;
    margin: 50px auto;
    overflow: hidden;
    box-shadow: 0 0 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
}
.-menu {
    float: left;
    width: 25%;
}
.-main {
    float: right;
    width: 75%;
    min-height: 500px;
}

That’s all the code! The <? inline("...") ?> snippets are all the extra code you need to learn. They embed contents into your layout, which are stored in individual files.

What works for you out of the box:

• central login on boomla.com
• the Boomla editor tools are injected in your site (toolbar, contextmenu, ..)
• install apps from the Boomla Store
• drag-and-drop to create and sort contents
• contextmenu for each content to copy/past/remove, configure, sort them
• undo/redo for your entire filesystem
• clone your website to try things without breaking your site
• version control

Notice what you don’t have to worry about:

• learning a dynamic programming language like JavaScript or PHP
• learning and using an overly complex CMS admin page
• database management
• Apache or other web server configuration
• Linux (users, access control, process management, the terminal, system administration in general)
• buying or renting a server

Boomla is the best tool for creating your own website with HTML/CSS.

Boomla is a functional application platform for websites

Read: Boomla is an application platform like Windows, but it was designed for multi-user environments like the Web. It’s primary user interface is the browser, and its first use-case is building ordinary websites. It’s functional as in Haskell, but not the language, rather the architecture.

Boomla is full of interesting ideas.

Technically

• Boomla is an application platform. It does not control HW.
• You can download and run Boomla on Windows, Mac, Linux. Or just sign up and go.
• The Boomla Platform has no external dependencies to make it simple.
• Boomla implements its own FS because the POSIX filesystem is not for high concurrency.
• Boomla has no DB, you can use file attributes for storing structured data.
• Boomla runs applications in isolated VMs. Currently JS, more later.
• Boomla comes with built-in version control.
• You can connect to the Boomla FS via SFTP to use your familiar dev tools.
• This website runs entirely on Boomla.

Boomla vs any CMS

Working with a CMS is not fun. A CMS cobbles together existing systems to get the job done: to build websites. Boomla is like, okay, we figured out how websites shall work, so let’s throw away those cobbled together prototypes and build a real thing. Boomla is a real application platform for websites, from scratch. It makes web development fun again.

Why should I care?

• Boomla is fast.
• The Boomla FS makes you dramatically more productive (small apps consistently ended up being 17x shorter).
• Operating systems had no real innovation for decades. Boomla will blow your mind.
• Boomla feels like a software from a different universe.
• Once you got over the initial learning curve with Boomla, you will not want to touch any CMS again.

What’s the catch?

• Small ecosystem, few themes, apps.
• Boomla is a functional platform, so you can’t call external services on the server.

Will it be around in 5 years?

Boomla has already been around for 12 years. For the first decade, it has been researched and prototyped full time by a single developer out of sheer passion. Now we are cash-flow positive and growing a team.

It absolutely will be around.