s:CMS gets a fresh start: from Gatsby to Astro

We are pleased to announce the release of the new version of s:CMS, the open source framework developed and maintained by LAD – Laboratorio di Archeologia Digitale at Sapienza for building and managing static websites geared towards humanities and archaeological research.

This version represents a radical paradigm shift: after years of development on Gatsby, s:CMS has been completely rewritten on Astro, one of the most modern and performant static site frameworks available today.

Why abandon Gatsby?

Gatsby was for a long time a benchmark in the development of React-based static sites. In recent years, however, its architectural complexity — centred on GraphQL as a mandatory abstraction layer for any data source — has become increasingly difficult to justify for medium-sized projects. Build times kept growing, the plugin ecosystem was fragmented and poorly maintained, and the configuration overhead discouraged outside contributions.

The choice of Astro answers concrete needs:

• Faster builds: Astro adopts an islands architecture approach, sending the browser only the JavaScript that is strictly necessary.
• No mandatory GraphQL: data is loaded directly into pages and components, with complete freedom of source.
• Native support for React, MDX and TypeScript: no complicated adapters, everything works out of the box.
• Content Collections with Zod validation: content management is typed and validated at build time.
• Active, growing community: Astro is today among the liveliest open source web projects.

What changes for users

Project structure

The separation between framework code and user content — already present in the Gatsby version — has been made even sharper and more formal:

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scms/
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├── core/          # Framework (updatable, do not modify)
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└── usr/           # Your content and customizations (edit freely)
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    ├── content/   # Pages, posts, data
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    ├── pages/     # Astro routes
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    ├── components/
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    ├── layouts/
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    └── styles/

This separation makes it possible to receive core updates through a simple:

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npm run update-scms

without risking overwriting your own content or customizations.

Content as Content Collections

Content in usr/content/ is now defined through Astro Content Collections with a Zod schema in usr/content/config.ts. Validation happens at build time: if a frontmatter is incomplete or incorrect, the build fails with a clear message, even before the site is published.

Scaffolding scripts

Two new interactive commands simplify content creation without having to manually edit configuration files:

• npm run add-collection — creates a new collection with schema, listing and detail pages already set up.
• npm run add-content — adds a single content file to an existing collection, automatically detecting the fields from the Zod schema.

User configuration

Site configuration is centralized in usr/user.config.mjs, which is merged with astro.config.mjs at runtime. Site metadata (title, description, author, default social-sharing image) is set through the siteMetadata object:

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export const siteMetadata = {
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  title: 'Il mio sito',
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  description: 'Descrizione del sito',
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  author: 'Nome Autore',
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  site: 'https://miosito.it',
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};

MapLibre instead of Leaflet: a considered choice

One of the most visible differences from the previous version concerns interactive maps. The mapping component has been completely rewritten around MapLibre GL JS, abandoning Leaflet.

This is not a random choice, nor a simple technical upgrade: it is a strategic decision.

Leaflet is an excellent library for simple raster maps, but it shows its limits when faced with complex vector visualizations, large geographic datasets, and advanced map styling. It is also, in practice, in a phase of passive maintenance, with no active development of new features.

MapLibre GL JS, an open source fork of Mapbox GL JS, offers:

• GPU-accelerated vector rendering: smooth maps even with thousands of features.
• Fully declarative styling: colours, icons, labels, filters and transitions defined in a single style JSON.
• Vector tile support (MVT/PBF): compatible with any open source tile server (Martin, TileServer-GL, PMTiles).
• Active development: the MapLibre community is very lively, with frequent releases.
• Full PMTiles compatibility: the ability to distribute vector maps as a single file, without a server.

s:CMS’s Map component exposes the same declarative interface as the previous version for vector and raster layers, but now harnesses the full power of GL rendering.

Features retained from the Gatsby version

Despite the complete rewrite, all of s:CMS’s main features are present in the new version:

LAD’s own website is already on Astro

This very site — lad.saras.uniroma1.it — is already built on the new version of s:CMS. It is therefore the most direct testbed: every component, every integration, every feature is verified in production before being considered stable.

How to get started

The repository is public on GitHub:

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git clone https://github.com/lad-sapienza/sCMS.git my-project
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cd my-project
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npm install
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npm run dev

Full documentation is in the repository’s README.

Conclusions

The move from Gatsby to Astro is not just a technical upgrade: it is an investment in the long-term sustainability of s:CMS. A framework that is simpler to understand, faster to use, and easier to update means that projects built on it can be maintained — and updated — with less effort over time.

Replacing Leaflet with MapLibre follows the same logic: not chasing novelty for its own sake, but choosing tools with a solid development trajectory that make it possible to do things that would otherwise be impossible.

s:CMS remains what it has always been: a practical, open source tool, designed for those who do research and want a serious website without depending on proprietary platforms.

The source code is available on GitHub under the BSD-0-Clause licence.