Conloca vs Kiln

Conloca is a free, open-source content management system built specifically for Astro websites. Its browser editor, powered by Puck, lets editors assemble and update pages with drag-and-drop components. Content is stored as VXJSON files in the project’s Git repository, without a database or external service dependency. Every edit creates a Git commit with author attribution, allowing teams to review differences and revert changes. Separate content can be maintained for each configured locale, and MDX combines Markdown with components. Conloca includes live preview and a media library. When editors change one page simultaneously, ETag-based conflict detection displays a resolution dialog. The system writes to a temporary file before atomically renaming it to reduce partial writes after a crash. It runs on Bun and can deploy in Docker, on a VPS with systemd or behind a Cloudflare Tunnel. Cloudflare Access authentication with JWT validation is available out of the box. Conloca costs nothing.

Kiln is an open-source, click-to-edit CMS for static sites. Invited editors change content directly on a site, with edits saved as Git commits in a repository owned by the site owner. Supported content includes text, images, documents, blocks, galleries, events, and calendar items. The publishing workflow includes drafts, scheduled publishing, named versions, history, and restoration. Owners sign in with GitHub, while invited editors and members can use Google sign-in and be scoped to particular pages or sections. Reviewer seats can comment only; suggest mode lets owners approve or decline proposed changes field by field. Kiln works with GitHub repositories and hosts that redeploy on push, including Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, Vercel, and GitHub Pages. A REST API and kiln-mcp support scoped, sanitized edits by scripts and agents; optional AI assistance uses an API key supplied by the user. Site content remains plain HTML in the customer's repository, even after leaving Kiln. Self-hosted costs nothing; Kiln Cloud is $4.99 a month, and Fully managed is $14.99 a month.