A CMS That Grows With You
October CMS has been steadily building momentum in the PHP ecosystem. With more than 9,000 stars, 2,000 forks, and 300 contributors on GitHub, it has evolved into a serious contender for developers who want the flexibility of Laravel without reinventing the content-management wheel. It was voted Best Flat-File CMS in 2018, and its marketplace now sees new plugins published almost daily.
The platform is built on Laravel, which gives it a clean and maintainable codebase. On top of that foundation, October adds a straightforward CMS layer, delivering a combination that appeals to both developers and content editors. The result is a system that can spin up a project in minutes while keeping the door open for deep customization. For businesses and agencies, that translates into lower development and maintenance costs.
Despite its power, October aims to stay simple. Its design philosophy is “as simple as possible, but not simpler,” which means it sticks to a basic web stack — PHP for rendering HTML, plus CSS and JS — avoiding unnecessary complexity.
Getting October CMS Running
Because October runs on PHP, you’ll need a web server and a MySQL database. MAMP is a free option that provides both Apache or Nginx and works on Windows and macOS. The wizard-based installation is quick:
- Create a new MySQL database.
- Download and unpack the installer into your site’s directory (make sure it’s writable and set as the document root).
- Open the installer script in your browser, which then:
- Collects database and site configuration details plus admin credentials:
- Asks whether to start from scratch, install a specific theme, or pull in an existing project with its own theme and plugins:
- Hitting “Install!” completes the process in seconds, depending on your connection speed:
After installation, visiting the site URL shows the starter demo theme, and navigating to /backend brings up the admin login. Once logged in, the final housekeeping step is deleting the installer files.
For a leaner setup, the command-line installer is a compelling alternative. It only requires a single command:
$ curl -s https://octobercms.com/api/installer | php
This method is faster — around 10 seconds — because it doesn’t prompt for database configuration. That makes it a good fit for a flat-file CMS configuration where everything is stored on disk without a database.
The Templating Toolkit
October’s templating system is built around a few core concepts. In practice, these elements are plain files in your site folder, so you can edit them using the built-in editor or your own IDE.
Pages, Partials, Layouts
Pages are the most basic content container and are shipped with the core (blog posts, by contrast, come from a plugin). They use Twig, a PHP template engine from the Symfony team, which compiles to optimized PHP for fast execution.
Partials are reusable code chunks — ideal for navigation menus, testimonials, or call-to-action sections — that prevent duplication across pages and layouts.
Layouts define the <html> and <body> scaffolding: headers, footers, sidebars, and the frame around the page content, which gets injected in from the corresponding page.
Components for Extension
Components are the main plug-in point for extending October’s functionality. Any page, partial, or layout can attach components, which usually come from plugins. Beyond rendering HTML, components can offer services like form validation, permission checks, or security features.
Marketplace Essentials
The October marketplace hosts themes and plugins — both free and paid — which can dramatically cut down project setup time. Currently, it offers 915 plugins, covering needs such as blogging, SEO, e-commerce, analytics, email, galleries, maps, security, social, and user management. On top of that, there are more than 150 themes.
Any third-party developer or agency can submit offerings, provided they meet the marketplace’s quality guidelines. This ensures the ecosystem remains performant and secure.
Building an E-Commerce Store
To demonstrate a practical use case, let’s build an online shop using Shopaholic, October’s most popular e-commerce plugin, and the free Bootstrap theme made for it. Shopaholic offers a full e-commerce suite with optional extensions. The core is free, and you only pay a one-time fee for the extensions you need — a more affordable route than recurring cloud subscriptions. You also keep full ownership of your code and data, which opens the door to unlimited customization.
October’s dependency management simplifies the install: activating the theme automatically brings in the Shopaholic plugin. To get started, go to Settings → Front-end theme, click “Find more themes,” and search for “Bootstrap theme for Shopaholic.” Once installed, activate it from the theme manager:
With the theme active, new menus appear. The “Catalog” menu lets you manage products, categories, and brands. It starts empty:
Populating the Catalog
Data entry can be done one item at a time, or — far more efficient for large sets — via CSV and XML imports. For a demo site, the Fake Data for Shopaholic plugin is a practical shortcut. It provides sample datasets and handles the import process. The steps:
- Install “Fake Data for Shopaholic” from Settings → Updates & Plugins.
- Go to Dashboard, click Manage widgets, then Add widget.
- Select “Fake data for Shopaholic” and click Add.
- In the new widget, click Generate under “Generate fake data.”
Before running, you specify how many times to repeat the insertion (for bulk testing) and choose between the clothes or sneakers dataset:
After generation, the catalog becomes fully populated:
Adding Promotions
Promotions are created through the top menu. After clicking Create and filling in the details, you have to edit each promotion again to attach products to it. Once you’ve created a few, the list shows everything at a glance:
Final Front-End Polish
With data in place, the last step is customizing the storefront. Head to Settings → Front-end theme → Customize and fill out the tabs for Header, Footer, Social, Main slider, and Index page. That completes the store setup:
Clicking any product displays its dedicated page:
Checking Performance and Resilience
Since the goal is to sell products, page speed and search-engine visibility are critical. Running Google Chrome's Lighthouse audit on the product page of the live demo yields a solid report:
Performance under traffic is equally important. A load test run with Load Impact — 50 virtual users over 12 minutes against the demo site hosted on a DigitalOcean droplet (Standard 2CPU/4 GB RAM) — shows the site maintains acceptable response times throughout:
The plugin also has a safety net: its unit tests cover core functionality, adding confidence in its reliability when real orders come in.
Enabling Purchases with Shopaholic Extensions
So far, visitors can browse but not buy. Adding purchase capability requires two free extensions: Orders for cart and order management, and Omnipay for payment processing. (Paid extensions from LOVATA are eligible for a 50% discount with coupon “WELCOME” on first purchase.) Install both via Settings → Updates & Plugins by searching for the names:
After installation, the admin navigation gains an Orders section, and the Settings page adds Payment methods and Shipping types configuration. Set these up and reload the product page — an Add to cart button now appears:
Shoppers can add multiple items and proceed through checkout to complete an order:
When a customer submits an order, inventory updates automatically for each purchased product. If configured, an email notification is sent; otherwise, all order details — products, buyer info, payment method, total — are visible in the Orders section, where the transaction can be finalized.
In just a few hours, a fully functional e-commerce store is up with October CMS and Shopaholic.
Building a Custom Extension
If none of the existing Shopaholic extensions cover a specific need, writing one is feasible for developers comfortable with PHP, Laravel, and object-oriented programming. The official documentation walks through the process step by step. Following the tutorial, adding a custom “rating” field to products takes only a few lines of code:
Once added, the new field can be retrieved and displayed in the product template:
This extensibility allows complete personalization of the e-commerce experience to match a brand’s exact requirements.
Why October CMS Works
October CMS combines the developer experience of Laravel with a rapidly growing marketplace of themes and plugins, enabling fast site builds. Shopaholic turns any October site into a full-fledged e-commerce platform with minimal effort. This efficiency makes it a cost-effective choice; the platform has gained recognition, winning the popular vote as best flat-file CMS in 2018, and has become a staple for agencies and businesses.
For help or advice, the October CMS Slack workspace is the community hub where plugin and theme developers exchange ideas and support. October is free to try, so there is little risk in experimenting with it.
