PageFour vs Competitors: Which Is Right for You?

PageFour: The Ultimate Guide to Getting StartedPageFour is a modern, lightweight tool designed to help individuals and teams create, organize, and publish content quickly. Whether you’re a solo creator building a personal site, a marketer coordinating campaigns, or a developer prototyping content-driven features, PageFour aims to reduce friction and let you focus on what matters: your content.

What is PageFour?

PageFour is a content-first platform that blends the simplicity of a static site generator with collaborative features commonly found in headless CMS solutions. It provides:

• A minimal editing interface focused on writing and structure.
• Fast build and deployment workflows to get updates live quickly.
• Flexible templates and components for consistent design across pages.
• Versioning and rollback so you can track and revert changes.
• Integration options for authentication, analytics, and custom data sources.

Who should use PageFour?

PageFour is well suited for:

• Solo bloggers and writers who want an easy publishing flow.
• Small teams needing a shared content workspace without complex setup.
• Product teams prototyping landing pages and documentation.
• Developers who prefer a content platform that integrates with existing stacks.

Key concepts

• Content entries: the individual pages or posts you create.
• Templates: reusable layouts that define how entries render.
• Components: modular UI pieces (headers, cards, galleries) used inside templates.
• Build pipeline: the process that transforms entries and templates into static assets.
• Deploy targets: destinations like Vercel, Netlify, or S3 where your site is hosted.

Getting started — a step-by-step walkthrough

1. Sign up and create a new project
   • Choose a starter template (blog, docs, portfolio).
2. Create your first content entry
   • Use the editor to add text, images, and metadata (title, slug, tags).
3. Pick or customize a template
   • Drag components into place or edit template code for advanced layout.
4. Configure build & deploy
   • Connect a Git repo or enable direct deploy to a hosting provider.
5. Set up integrations
   • Add analytics, enable comments, or connect to an external API.
6. Publish and iterate
   • Preview drafts, schedule posts, and use versioning to manage changes.

Example workflow (blog post)

• Draft in the editor using Markdown or rich text.
• Add metadata: title, excerpt, featured image, tags.
• Assign to a category and schedule the publish date.
• Preview and publish to push the static build to your host.

Tips & best practices

• Use templates to keep design consistent.
• Break complex layouts into reusable components.
• Optimize images during upload for faster builds.
• Leverage metadata to improve SEO and filtering.
• Use preview environments to review changes before publishing.

Troubleshooting common issues

• Build failures: check console logs for missing components or syntax errors.
• Image not loading: verify asset paths and CDN settings.
• Permission errors: confirm user roles and access tokens for integrations.

Extending PageFour

• Use the API to fetch entries programmatically.
• Write custom components in your preferred framework (React/Vue/Svelte).
• Automate publishes via CI/CD pipelines.

Final thoughts

PageFour offers a streamlined path from idea to published page, balancing simplicity for non-technical users with extensibility for developers. Start small with a template, then progressively customize templates and components as your needs grow.