After 4 alphas, XooPress Beta‑1 is out. Feature‑complete, 2.99 MB core, PHP 8.2+, no frameworks. Now we need help with bug fixing, testing, modules, themes, and translations
What is XooPress?
A modular CMS that combines ideas from XOOPS and WordPress – built from scratch, with no Symfony, no Laravel, no bloat.
- PHP 8.2+, MVC, PSR-11 container, PDO, hooks & filters, custom post types, taxonomies, shortcodes, themes, widgets, menus, CLI tool, REST API with OpenAPI, multisite, webhooks, content workflow, full‑text search, two‑factor auth, and more.
- The entire core (with all these features) zips to under 3 MB.
- Beta‑1 is a feature freeze – we now focus 100% on stability, tests, and polish before 1.0.0.
Why contribute?
You won’t fight framework bloat or legacy cruft. The codebase is small, modern, and self‑contained. You can help shape a fresh alternative in the CMS space – not to kill WordPress, but to offer a leaner, more integrated option.
Where we need help
We’re a small team (mostly one person so far) and we’re realistic about what Beta‑1 needs:
- Core development – bug fixes, performance, security hardening, PHPUnit tests.
- Module development – add new functionality via the module system (examples: SEO, forms, caching, analytics).
- Theme development – create new responsive themes using the theme API.
- Translations – the translation server (XPTranslate) is in early stage; help with i18n, locales, and gettext compatibility.
You don’t need to be an expert – just interested in modern PHP, CMS architecture, or open source.
Repositories
- XooPress Core – the CMS itself
- XPApi – marketplace REST API
- XPMarketplace – marketplace frontend UI
- XPTranslate – translation server
Getting started
- Read the docs
- Try the web installer or CLI setup
- Check open issues (good first issues are tagged)
- Join the discussion – we’re new, so any feedback is gold
No hype, just honest work
XooPress is not production‑ready yet. Beta means exactly that. But it’s feature‑complete and we’ve proven the architecture works. Now we need more eyes, more hands, and more languages.
If you’ve ever thought “I’d like a CMS that doesn’t require 50 MB of vendor code just to start” – take a look.