Built a self-hosted CMS where everything lives in one .pod file (SQLite). No external database, no cloud storage, no vendor accounts.

What's self-hosted:

• The admin server (@a83/orbiter-admin) — runs on port 4322, your machine or VPS
• The .pod file — stays on your server, you control it completely
• Media files — stored as BLOBs inside the pod, no S3 bucket needed

Deploy anywhere Node.js runs: Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Railway, Fly.io, Docker.

docker run -p 4322:4322
-v /path/to/content.pod:/data/content.pod
-e ORBITER_POD=/data/content.pod
orbiter-admin

The public-facing site is Astro (static or SSR), reads from the same pod at build time. The admin and the site are completely separate processes.

GitHub: https://github.com/aeon022/orbiter

Official: https://orbiter.sh

One CMS, one file. No cloud account. No vendor lock-in.

Orbiter stores everything — content, media, schema, users — in a single SQLite file. The admin runs on your own server. Your data stays your data.

Positioning

Who it's for:

• Developers using Astro who need a CMS without detours
• Solo developers and small teams (1–5 people)
• Projects without budget for Contentful, Sanity, or Prismic
• Anyone who wants full control over their data

Who it competes with:

• Contentful / Sanity / Prismic → too expensive, vendor lock-in, unnecessary complexity for small projects
• WordPress → PHP stack, database setup, no native Astro support
• Keystatic / Decap CMS → git-based, no visual editor, no media management

Differentiators:

One file. The .pod is the entire CMS. Backup = cp content.pod.

Self-hosted admin. No SaaS, no subscription, no API key.

Astro-native. orbiter:collections is a Vite virtual module — no runtime fetch.

No build step in the admin. Vanilla JS + CSS, starts instantly.

Real block editor. Inline images with float alignment, video embedding (YouTube/Vimeo/mp4), cloud URL import (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive).

AI-ready. One prompt for Claude Code/ChatGPT/Gemini scaffolds a complete Astro + Orbiter project in one shot.

Built a self-hosted CMS where everything lives in one .pod file (SQLite). No external database, no cloud storage, no vendor accounts.

What's self-hosted:

• The admin server (@a83/orbiter-admin) — runs on port 4322, your machine or VPS
• The .pod file — stays on your server, you control it completely
• Media files — stored as BLOBs inside the pod, no S3 bucket needed

Deploy anywhere Node.js runs: Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Railway, Fly.io, Docker.

docker run -p 4322:4322 \
  -v /path/to/content.pod:/data/content.pod \
  -e ORBITER_POD=/data/content.pod \
  orbiter-admin

The public-facing site is Astro (static or SSR), reads from the same pod at build time. The admin and the site are completely separate processes.

GitHub: https://github.com/aeon022/orbiter

Official: https://orbiter.sh

One CMS, one file. No cloud account. No vendor lock-in.

Orbiter stores everything — content, media, schema, users — in a single SQLite file. The admin runs on your own server. Your data stays your data.

Positioning

Who it's for:

• Developers using Astro who need a CMS without detours
• Solo developers and small teams (1–5 people)
• Projects without budget for Contentful, Sanity, or Prismic
• Anyone who wants full control over their data

Who it competes with:

• Contentful / Sanity / Prismic → too expensive, vendor lock-in, unnecessary complexity for small projects
• WordPress → PHP stack, database setup, no native Astro support
• Keystatic / Decap CMS → git-based, no visual editor, no media management

Differentiators:

1. One file. The .pod is the entire CMS. Backup = cp content.pod.
2. Self-hosted admin. No SaaS, no subscription, no API key.
3. Astro-native. orbiter:collections is a Vite virtual module — no runtime fetch.
4. No build step in the admin. Vanilla JS + CSS, starts instantly.
5. Real block editor. Inline images with float alignment, video embedding (YouTube/Vimeo/mp4), cloud URL import (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive).
6. AI-ready. One prompt for Claude Code/ChatGPT/Gemini scaffolds a complete Astro + Orbiter project in one shot.