Wagtail
What it is
Wagtail was born in 2014 at Torchbox, a British agency working for non-profit organisations, and it is published under a free licence. It rests on Django, a Python development framework known for its security, and it adds what Django lacks for writers: a block-based page editor, an image library, drafts, a preview, permissions by role. It is used by public services, universities, NGOs and companies worldwide.
Why Wagtail
- An editor designed for writers: pages, blocks, images, preview before publishing
- Institution-grade security, without a jungle of extensions to keep up to date
- Fast, lean websites, easy to reference, that stay readable on an entry-level phone
- Open code that the association owns and can host elsewhere
- Native multilingual support, page by page, with links between versions
What it requires
Wagtail is built by a developer: page types, blocks and templates are code, not settings. That is what makes it robust and what sets it apart from a drag-and-drop website builder. Once built, the editor is enough for everything that is content; adding a new page type (a calendar, a directory) becomes development again, quoted as a module.
What you do with it day to day
- Publish a news item with an image, schedule it for later
- Change an opening hour, an address, a home text, and preview before publishing
- Add a page from an existing template and place it in the menu
- Manage images in a shared library, cropped automatically
- Give access to a new volunteer, with the right to write without publishing
In Kern4Good
The Wagtail foundation is developed once per cohort and benefits the five associations; each website then has its own repository, its own content and visual identity. KERN-IT has used it for over ten years for its clients, associations included. On the ladder of the Pricing page, Wagtail comes with the small editable website at 4 000 EUR (three or four page templates, a blog) and the complete website at 8 000 EUR (eight templates, multilingual, migration). The half-day training is part of these formulas.
Further reading
Is Wagtail free?
The software is open source and free, without licence or paid extension. What costs is the design and development work of the website, then hosting.
Do you need to code to run a Wagtail website?
Not to run it: the editor is enough, and a half-day training makes an editor autonomous. Yes to build it or add new page types, and that is KERN-IT's role.
Can a Wagtail website be hosted elsewhere?
Yes. The code belongs to you and any host running Python can take it. The programme hands the repository and the content to an association leaving the pooled hosting.
Is Wagtail suited to a small website?
From about ten pages with someone who publishes, yes. For one to five pages that rarely change, a static website without a CMS costs less and looks after itself; that is the launch website of the ladder.