Plank CMS

A self-hosted headless CMS you can deploy in minutes. Built on Node.js and PostgreSQL — runs entirely on your infrastructure.

Quick start

pnpm dlx @plank-cms/plank init .
pnpm start

Or with npm:

npx @plank-cms/plank init .
npm start

The admin panel will be available at http://localhost:5500/admin.

What it is

Plank is a headless CMS that runs as a standalone Express server and exposes a REST API for consuming content from any frontend. Content types and fields are defined visually from the admin panel — no code changes, no restarts.

The API is token-authenticated. Tokens are managed from the admin panel and can be scoped to read-only or full access.

Architecture

• Server — Express 5, REST API, JWT auth, role-based access control
• Database — PostgreSQL via pg (no ORM). Each content type maps to a real table; schema changes run as live ALTER TABLE statements
• Admin panel — React + Vite, served as static files by the same Express process in production
• Media — provider pattern with support for local storage, AWS S3, and Cloudflare R2

Requirements

• Node.js 20+
• PostgreSQL 18

License

MIT — AM25, S.A.S. DE C.V.