🔺 Lambda CMS

A modern, self-hosted CMS + CRM built for developers. Block editor · CRM · Email campaigns · In-browser image editor · 2FA · Headless API · No cloud lock-in.

📖 Read the Docs

📸 Screenshots


_{Dashboard — stats, charts, and recent activity}	_{Posts — list with search, filters, and bulk actions}

_{CRM Contacts — manage people, companies, and activities}	_{CRM Companies — organize contacts under companies}

_{Deals — pipeline board with Lead → Won stages}	_{Call Lists — organize contacts for outreach}

_{Email Templates — customize system email content}	_{Subscribers — manage newsletter signups}

_{Campaigns — create and send email newsletters}

💡 What is Lambda CMS?

Lambda CMS is a clean, fast, fully self-hosted content management system with a built-in CRM and email marketing toolkit. No subscriptions, no SaaS lock-in — you own your data and your stack. Built with Laravel 12, Vue 3, and Inertia.js, it feels like a modern SPA while keeping the server-side simplicity of a traditional Laravel app.

🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Backend	Laravel 12, PHP 8.2+
Frontend	Vue 3 (Composition API), Inertia.js 2, Tailwind CSS 4, Vite 7
UI	shadcn-vue, reka-ui, Lucide icons
Rich Text	Tiptap
Database	SQLite (default) or MySQL

✨ Features

📝 Content Management

Posts — full CRUD with Tiptap rich text or the drag-and-drop block editor
Pages — static pages built entirely with the block editor
Categories & Tags — many-to-many on posts; categories support custom colors
Scheduled publishing — set a future date and posts go live automatically via the scheduler
Autosave — drafts save quietly in the background while you write
Revisions — full history with one-click restore (up to 25 per post/page)
Draft previews — shareable token-based URLs, no login required
Bulk actions — publish, draft, or delete multiple posts at once

🧱 Block Editor

30+ block types across six categories:

Category	Blocks
Content	Paragraph, Heading, Quote, Code, Divider, Spacer, HTML, Accordion, Tabs, Embed
Media	Image, Gallery, Video
Layout	Section, Container (flex / grid / inline-flex)
Interactive	Button, CTA, Link, Navigation, Search, Filter Link, Active Filter, Icon List
Data	Loop, Pagination, Post Card, Post Title, Post Body, Post Featured Image, Post Meta, Post Author, Post Taxonomy, Post Comments, Archive Title
Site	Nav Header, Site Footer, Masthead, Band, Template

What makes it nice to use:

Drag-and-drop canvas with cross-list nesting and a layers panel tree
Per-block Style tab — typography, colors, background (solid / gradient / image), border, shadow, spacing
Dynamic field bindings — link block content to loop or post-context data sources
Per-block Advanced settings — custom CSS classes, inline CSS, font family
Conditional block visibility based on loop field values
Block labels shown in canvas and layers panel

🖼️ Media Library & Image Editor

Upload images, documents, video, and audio (configurable size limit, default 10 MB)
In-browser image editor — crop with 9 aspect ratio presets, rotate, flip, 8 filter presets (Normal, Vivid, Muted, B&W, Warm, Cool, Fade, Drama), and manual brightness / contrast / saturation / blur controls. Opens before upload and on any existing library item.
Auto-resize images larger than the configured limit (default 1920 px wide)
Alt text and description per file; UUID-based filenames with dimension tracking
Admins see all files; users see their own

🎨 Template System

7 pre-shipped system templates — Post Card, Default Blog Index, Default Single Post, Default Archive, Default Search Results, Default Header, Default Footer
Custom templates share the same block editor, autosave, and revisions
Loop blocks correctly inherit context for dynamic bindings

🌐 Public Frontend

Every public page rendered from editable block templates
Header and footer rendered from dedicated block templates
Blog index, single post, category/tag archives, and full-text search
RSS feed at /feed and XML sitemap at /sitemap.xml
Design token system — accent color applies live to both admin and blog
Admin bar visible to authenticated users only

💬 Comments

Public submission with honeypot spam protection and rate limiting
Admin moderation — approve, reject, or delete individually or in bulk
Nested replies with email notifications
Per-post toggle to enable/disable comments

👥 CRM

A built-in customer relationship management system with fine-grained, permission-based access control. Each CRM module has its own permission that can be granted independently to non-admin users.

Contacts — manage people with name, email, phone, position, notes, and company association. Statuses: active, inactive, archived. Full-text search across all fields. Activity timeline on the edit page.
Companies — organize contacts under companies with domain, phone, and address. Contacts and deals counts shown in the list view.
Deals — track sales opportunities through a 5-stage pipeline: Lead, Qualified, Proposal, Won, Lost. Each deal tracks monetary value, expected close date, and links to a contact and company. Closing a deal as Won or Lost auto-stamps closed_at; reopening clears it. Activity timeline per deal.
Call Lists — create lists of contacts for outreach campaigns. Add/remove contacts, track call status per contact (not called, called, no answer, callback, completed), record notes per call, and work through the list with a dedicated calling interface.
Activities — log notes, calls, emails, meetings, and tasks against any contact, company, or deal. Shown as a timeline on the entity's edit page.
CRM Import — upload a CSV, preview rows, map columns to contact or company fields, choose a conflict strategy (skip or overwrite), and import in bulk.
CRM Export — download contacts, companies, or call lists as CSV files.

Permissions: manage contacts, manage companies, manage deals, manage call lists — each grantable independently to any user role.

📧 Email System

Customizable transactional emails, subscriber management, and email campaigns — all in one place.

Editable system email templates — 5 built-in templates (password reset, email verification, welcome, new comment, comment reply) stored in the database with a WYSIWYG editor. Each template supports merge tags (e.g. {{user_name}}, {{reset_url}}), live preview, and one-click reset to default. All Laravel system emails (password reset, verification, welcome, comment notifications) route through these templates automatically.
Subscriber management — a standalone subscribers table (separate from CRM contacts) for newsletter signups. Public subscribe form (Blade page at /subscribe) and token-based unsubscribe link. Admin interface with search, status filtering (active / unsubscribed), bulk delete, CSV export, and CSV import with column mapping and conflict strategy.
Email campaigns — create newsletters with the Tiptap editor, save as draft, and send to all active subscribers. Sending is handled by a queued job that processes each recipient individually. Per-recipient tracking with sent/failed/pending status and error messages. Campaign report page with stat cards and a recipients table.
Campaign scheduling — schedule campaigns for a future date and time instead of sending immediately. The Laravel scheduler checks every minute and auto-dispatches due campaigns. Scheduled campaigns can be edited (resets to draft), unscheduled back to draft, or sent immediately.
Unsubscribe footer — every campaign email includes an unsubscribe link with the subscriber's unique token.

Permission: manage email — covers templates, subscribers, and campaigns.

👤 Users & Roles

Two roles: administrator and user
Admins manage all content, users, settings, pages, and templates
Users manage their own posts, categories, tags, and media
Fine-grained permissions: manage contacts, manage companies, manage deals, manage call lists, manage email — each independently assignable
Avatar upload per profile
User invite flow — auto-generated password + welcome email
User banning with reason and optional expiry (auto-lifted on next login)
Online status tracking

🔐 Auth & Security

Email + password login with rate limiting (5 attempts / 60 s per email + IP)
Two-factor authentication — TOTP-based 2FA compatible with Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and any RFC 6238 app. Includes 8 single-use recovery codes.
Forgot / reset password via email token
Email verification required before dashboard access
Author-scoped post and media access

🔗 Webhooks

Events: post.published, post.updated, post.deleted, page.published, page.updated, page.deleted
HMAC-SHA256 request signature (X-Lambda-Signature) when a secret is set
Dispatched via queued jobs; last_triggered_at tracked per webhook

📅 Editorial Calendar

Month-view calendar with published, scheduled, and draft posts
Unscheduled drafts panel alongside the calendar
Admins see all; users see their own

⚙️ Settings

Site name, URL, timezone, and date format
SEO defaults (meta description, OG image, keywords, title separator)
SMTP mail configuration with test-send
Media upload limits and image resize threshold
Comments (enabled toggle, items per page)
Appearance: accent color applied live to admin and blog frontend
UI density: default, compact, or comfortable
Custom JS injection on every public page

🔌 REST API (Headless)

GET  /api/v1/posts
GET  /api/v1/posts/{slug}
GET  /api/v1/categories
GET  /api/v1/categories/{slug}
GET  /api/v1/tags
GET  /api/v1/tags/{slug}
POST /api/v1/query        <- block editor loop data source

📦 Import / Export

Export your content as a portable ZIP and re-import it into any Lambda CMS instance.

Supported entities: Posts, Pages, Categories, Tags, Media, Templates

Export — pick which entities to include, optionally bundle media files, and download a .zip. Import — upload a ZIP, preview what's inside, select entities, choose a conflict strategy (skip, overwrite, or duplicate), and run.

📋 ZIP structure and JSON schemas

The export ZIP contains a manifest.json, one JSON file per entity type, and an optional media/ folder:

lambda-cms-export-2026-06-15-120000.zip
├── manifest.json
├── posts.json
├── pages.json
├── categories.json
├── tags.json
├── media.json
├── templates.json
└── media/
    ├── a1b2c3d4-photo.jpg
    └── e5f6g7h8-document.pdf

manifest.json

{
  "version": "1.0",
  "app": "lambda-cms",
  "exported_at": "2026-06-15T12:00:00.000000Z",
  "entities": ["posts", "pages", "categories", "tags", "media", "templates"],
  "include_media_files": true,
  "counts": {
    "posts": 12,
    "pages": 3,
    "categories": 5,
    "tags": 8,
    "media": 20,
    "templates": 4
  }
}

posts.json

[
  {
    "title": "My First Post",
    "slug": "my-first-post",
    "excerpt": "A short summary",
    "body": "<p>HTML content</p>",
    "body_format": "html",
    "status": "published",
    "featured": false,
    "published_at": "2026-06-01T10:00:00.000000Z",
    "comments_enabled": true,
    "use_block_editor": false,
    "blocks": [],
    "meta_title": null,
    "meta_description": null,
    "meta_keywords": null,
    "custom_js": null,
    "categories": ["tutorials", "laravel"],
    "tags": ["php", "cms"],
    "featured_image": "a1b2c3d4-photo.jpg"
  }
]

Field	Type	Notes
`title`	string	Required
`slug`	string	Used for conflict detection. Auto-generated on duplicate strategy
`excerpt`	string\|null	Plain text summary
`body`	string\|null	HTML content (when `body_format` is `html`)
`body_format`	`"html"` \| `"blocks"`	Determines whether `body` or `blocks` holds the content
`status`	`"draft"` \| `"published"` \| `"scheduled"`	Defaults to `draft` on import
`featured`	boolean
`published_at`	ISO 8601\|null
`comments_enabled`	boolean
`use_block_editor`	boolean
`blocks`	array	Block editor JSON (when `body_format` is `blocks`)
`meta_title`	string\|null	SEO title override
`meta_description`	string\|null	SEO description
`meta_keywords`	string\|null	SEO keywords
`custom_js`	string\|null	Per-post JavaScript
`categories`	string[]	Array of category slugs — resolved on import
`tags`	string[]	Array of tag slugs — resolved on import
`featured_image`	string\|null	Media filename — resolved to a media ID on import

pages.json

[
  {
    "title": "About Us",
    "slug": "about-us",
    "status": "published",
    "blocks": [
      { "type": "heading", "data": { "text": "About Us", "level": 1 } },
      { "type": "paragraph", "data": { "text": "Welcome to our site." } }
    ],
    "meta_title": null,
    "meta_description": null,
    "meta_keywords": null,
    "custom_js": null
  }
]

Field	Type	Notes
`title`	string	Required
`slug`	string	Used for conflict detection
`status`	`"draft"` \| `"published"`	Defaults to `draft` on import
`blocks`	array	Block editor JSON
`meta_title`	string\|null	SEO title override
`meta_description`	string\|null	SEO description
`meta_keywords`	string\|null	SEO keywords
`custom_js`	string\|null	Per-page JavaScript

categories.json

[
  {
    "name": "Tutorials",
    "slug": "tutorials",
    "description": "Step-by-step guides",
    "color": "#5e81ac",
    "hue": 213
  }
]

tags.json

[
  {
    "name": "PHP",
    "slug": "php"
  }
]

media.json

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "filename": "a1b2c3d4-photo.jpg",
    "original_filename": "photo.jpg",
    "disk": "public",
    "path": "media/a1b2c3d4-photo.jpg",
    "mime_type": "image/jpeg",
    "type": "image",
    "size": 204800,
    "width": 1920,
    "height": 1080,
    "alt": "A landscape photo",
    "description": null
  }
]

When include_media_files is enabled, the actual files are bundled under media/ in the ZIP, keyed by filename.

templates.json

[
  {
    "title": "Default Blog Index",
    "type": "index",
    "loop_source": "posts",
    "status": "published",
    "blocks": [],
    "meta_title": null,
    "meta_description": null,
    "meta_keywords": null
  }
]

Field	Type	Notes
`title`	string	Used with `type` for conflict detection
`type`	`"index"` \| `"single"` \| `"archive"` \| `"search"` \| `"header"` \| `"footer"` \| `"partial"`	Template type
`loop_source`	string\|null	Data source for loop blocks (e.g. `"posts"`)
`status`	`"draft"` \| `"published"`	When importing a published non-partial template, other published templates of the same type are demoted to draft
`blocks`	array	Block editor JSON

Conflict strategies

Strategy	Behavior
Skip	Leave existing records untouched. Only create records that don't exist yet.
Overwrite	Update existing records with the imported data. Matched by slug (posts, pages, categories, tags), filename (media), or title + type (templates).
Duplicate	Always create new records, generating a unique slug when needed.

🧙 Installer

4-step browser wizard: Database > Site > Admin > Mail
Supports SQLite and MySQL; tests the DB connection before writing .env
Runs migrations, seeds system templates, and creates the first admin account

🚀 Getting Started

Requirements

PHP 8.2+
Composer
Node.js 20+ and npm
SQLite (bundled with PHP) or MySQL 8+

Install

git clone https://github.com/mariusberget92/lambda-cms.git
cd lambda-cms

composer install
npm install

cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate

npm run build

Open the site in a browser — you'll be redirected to /install to run the setup wizard.

Local Development

php artisan serve
npm run dev

Production

php artisan config:cache
php artisan route:cache
php artisan view:cache
npm run build

Add a cron entry to run the scheduler (handles auto-publishing scheduled posts and dispatching scheduled campaigns):

* * * * * cd /path/to/lambda-cms && php artisan schedule:run >> /dev/null 2>&1

For email campaigns, webhook dispatches, and other queued jobs, start a queue worker:

php artisan queue:work

🧪 Testing

php artisan test

The test suite covers 677 tests across content management, CRM, email system, campaign scheduling, and public-facing features.

🗺️ Roadmap

Full import / export (posts, pages, categories, tags, media, templates)
CRM (contacts, companies, deals, call lists, activities, import/export)
Email system (editable templates, subscribers, campaigns with scheduling)
Comprehensive test suite (677 tests)
API write access — token-based auth for creating and updating content
Multi-language / i18n content support

📄 License

MIT — do whatever you want with it.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.github		.github
app		app
bootstrap		bootstrap
config		config
database		database
docs		docs
public		public
resources		resources
routes		routes
storage		storage
tests		tests
.editorconfig		.editorconfig
.env.example		.env.example
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
SUMMARY.md		SUMMARY.md
artisan		artisan
components.json		components.json
composer.json		composer.json
composer.lock		composer.lock
jsconfig.json		jsconfig.json
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
phpunit.xml		phpunit.xml
postcss.config.cjs		postcss.config.cjs
tailwind.config.js		tailwind.config.js
vite.config.js		vite.config.js

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