Serverless WordPress

I like writing in WordPress’s block editor, but I didn’t want to pay for, patch and secure a WordPress server for a site that’s read far more often than it’s written. With static-wordpress, WordPress only exists while I’m editing. This site and its CMS run on it.

How it works

• Opening the CMS boots WordPress Playground, which is WordPress and PHP compiled to WebAssembly, in the browser and restores the last saved snapshot.
• Saving stores a database snapshot in Cloudflare D1 and media in R2, then triggers a Workers Builds run of the site.
• At build time, a Nuxt module reads a token-protected content feed from the CMS Worker and prepares the posts, images and sitemap.

Between edits, nothing runs except Cloudflare’s storage.

What went into it

• An editing lock, so two open tabs can’t overwrite each other’s snapshot.
• Custom fields defined in config that become native WordPress metaboxes. The links and tech stack on this page come from them.
• Importing a WordPress backup or WXR export, which is how this site’s existing posts moved over.
• Two TypeScript packages in a pnpm monorepo, with tests, released to GitHub Packages with changesets, and prereleases from every branch.

Built with

TypeScript, Cloudflare Workers, D1, R2, Workers Builds, WordPress Playground and Nuxt.