Punch

A fast and simple web site builder

A Static Site Builder + Headless CMS + Web Server

Features

• Blazing fast to build
  • compare with benchmark https://github.com/zachleat/bench-framework-markdown
• Static-site generation
• Single binary CLI to run
• Zero config (sensible defaults)
• Built-in support for Tailwind
• Built-in support for TypeScript, JS imports
• Automatic asset minification and fingerprinting
• Only build assets that are used in pages
• Easy RSS feed generation
• Serve multiple websites with different domains (with SSL)
• On-demand Rendering on server-side
• Content API (works as a headless CMS for client-side rendering)
• Website contents can be stored in different formats and sources (JSON, Markdown, CSV, or external sources like Notion)
• Extendable using plugins
• SQLite DB of contents available for direct access during build and runtime
• Compliant with Web Vitals recommendations https://web.dev/articles/vitals
• Automatic sitemap generation
• Reverse proxying and redirects
• Serve txt or md files directly (for LLMs)
• Host it anywhere Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages, S3, or VPS

TODO

• Internal redirects for images loaded via CSS / JS

• Sourcemap for css and JS

• CI tests for Windows

• Support for resizing images (for srcset)

• auto-redirect www to host

• on-demand rendering [~]

  • write rendered resources to disk

• Content API config (CORS, auth, block endpoints)

• Better error handling

  • failing to render HTML template -- (dev should show helpful error page, build should fail)

• CSP header middleware

• punch upgrade command

• Support svg optimizations (https://github.com/noahbald/oxvg)

• Single command publish (to punch.host and other providers)

• Font optimizations

• Support for diagrams in markdown content (mermaid)

• Opengraph images with Resvg

• Speculative Loading API

• Full-text / Semantic search (implement as a separate project)

• Migrate Jekyll, 11ty, Astro, and Hugo sites

• Easy A/B testing

• Support for i18n (multi-language sites)

• Middleware to render-partials (htmx use case)

• Immutable builds

  • serve can choose which build to use
  • build refs are stored in DB

What you can build with Punch?

• Marketing sites
• Personal Websites
• Blogs
• E-commerce stores (Shopify)
• Emails & Newsletters
• Documentation sites
• Mini apps

How it works?

-- TODO

CLI

• punch new - create a new site (support --template)
• punch dev - runs the site in dev mode (auto-reload on changes to data/, public/ or fragments/)
• punch build - generates a static site suitable for hosting
• punch serve - serves the static site in production mode with on-demand rendering and HTTP API (suitable for self-hosting)
• punch publish - publish to punch.site
• punch import - Imports any existing website and converts it to a Punch site