Manifesto
The back story…
Roe is software for building and publishing websites — a CMS (Content Management System) and SSG (Static Site Generator). There are hundreds of them, you’ve probably heard of a few: WordPress, Ghost, Astro, Jekyll, Hugo… the list goes on. So, why Roe?
Self-hosting
Most web services these days host everything for you. This convenience comes at a price, in the form of a monthly/yearly subscription, or locking you in to their ecosystem, or handing over ownership of the technical side of your site.
Roe gets around all that. You host the site. The site is yours, entirely. And since everything is in plain-text, it’s as configurable, as portable, as light and as safe as a site can be. You own your content, your site, and all your future options.
If you’re using Roe for personal sites, it’s free. If you’re using Roe for commercial sites, it’s a one-time license. That’s it. No ongoing subscription, no renewals. No features disappearing because you stopped paying.
File First
Roe puts your content first. Your entire site lives in files on your device, as Markdown files in the site/ folder (and so does your database, configuration, in easily-edited YAML, media and CSS files).
The markdown files are simple text files containing your site content. These are ‘marked up’ with simple notations that tell Roe how to build your page. For example, if you put * around text like so: *this*, it will make that text italic, like this.
You can edit your files directly on your device, and your changes will be synced to your site, but there is also a user interface — a text editor — in Roe, until you get confident with Markdown and ‘Roe-anji’ extensions (which are very easy to learn!).
Building your site with Roe ensures portability: your content is never locked into a proprietary format, there’s always a full copy on your computer.
Go forth and build…
Roe will make it easier to build sites and share what you make. If you’re interested, download and try it out. Or even hack on Roe, make it better with me. A more independent and unique internet is now much more than a nice idea. Our lives may depend on it!