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NocterraNocterra is a project of ASK-Solutions developing a general-purpose free-software Content Management System for fast, accessible, privacy-friendly and maintainable websites.
The CMS is built around source-based publishing, inspectable files, predictable output and long-term control by the people who maintain a site. A normal Nocterra website can be published without a public login screen, unnecessary database dependency, visitor tracking, telemetry, advertising scripts, a proprietary page builder or plugin marketplace as necessary parts of the publishing model. At the same time, a Nocterra site can contain PHP directly for dynamic functionality. The CMS can also be extended with extensions and add-ons for specialised applications.
The web makes it possible for people and organisations to publish without permission from a large software vendor, publisher or broadcaster. In practice, many website tools have moved in the opposite direction: hosted platforms, proprietary workflows, browser-accessible administration backends, telemetry, vendor lock-in, subscription-only themes, proprietary page builders and plugin ecosystems that can become fragile over time.
That fragility is not only technical. Many websites become dependent on commercial marketplaces, paid add-ons, abandoned plugins, incompatible themes, sudden subscription changes or components that stop receiving maintenance. When a website needs regular updates to remain secure and functional, an unmaintained plugin or theme can block a stable upgrade path and make the site dependent on a vendor, marketplace or one particular maintainer.
Nocterra is built from a different starting point. A website should be understandable, maintainable and portable. Its content and structure should be stored in files that can be backed up, inspected, edited, versioned and moved. The publishing system should help create fast, accessible and structured output without making every site dependent on an external platform, a continuously exposed administration surface or a marketplace of third-party components.
Nocterra is built around a source-based publishing model. Content, structure, configuration, presentation logic, extensions and add-ons are kept in forms that can be inspected, versioned, backed up, adapted and moved. The website visitors see is generated from those sources, rather than being locked inside a database-driven administration interface, proprietary page builder, marketplace theme or subscription-dependent plugin stack.
This makes Nocterra a general-purpose CMS for maintainable public websites, professional practices, small businesses, editorial websites, multilingual sites, documentation, project sites, organisational sites and other structured web publications and custom web applications. The point is not a fixed list of supported site types, but a publishing approach: keep the source understandable, keep control with the site owner and make long-term maintenance possible without dependency on a closed marketplace or unstable plugin ecosystem.
The system also supports additional functionality through PHP integration, extensions and add-ons. Some functionality belongs in the core CMS. Some belongs in an extension that can be installed when needed. Larger or more specialised functionality can be developed as an add-on. This keeps Nocterra extensible without turning the normal publishing model into a dependency on a proprietary plugin marketplace.
Authoring and deployment do not need to take place through a CMS-specific public administration environment. Site owners can use their own editor, operating system and workflow and can, for example, manage and transfer files using SSH, SCP, SFTP, rsync or WebDAV. Nocterra therefore does not try to rebuild an editor, user management, file transfer and an authentication protocol inside a single public web application when separate, established tools already exist for those purposes.
Nocterra has been released under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 since its first public release. This was a deliberate choice. Earlier publishing work such as Synergos had moved to GPLv3, but Nocterra was designed with the network-service problem in mind from the start: free software can still be used to restrict practical freedom when modified versions are offered only as hosted services.
The choice of free software fits questions that have long been central within ASK-Solutions concerning knowledge, freedom, dependency and practical control. The four essential freedoms of free software — being able to run, study, share and modify software — give those questions a concrete meaning within software. For ASK-Solutions, it is not enough for those freedoms merely to exist legally; they must also remain usable in practice.
Software used through a network raises an additional question. A party can modify free software and offer it exclusively as a network service without distributing the modified software itself. Users can then become practically dependent on a modified version that they use but cannot study or develop further.
The AGPLv3 addresses this more directly than the ordinary GPL when modified software is used as a network service. When users interact with such a modified version over a network, the licence ensures that they can obtain the corresponding source code of that modified version.
The licence therefore fits the technical direction of Nocterra. Source-based publishing, inspectable configuration, portable deployment and the AGPLv3 all point in the same direction: practical control should not silently shift to whoever happens to control the server, hosting or network service.
Nocterra contains no visitor tracking, tracking cookies, telemetry, advertising scripts or external analytics as part of its own model. A normal Nocterra website can be published without first asking visitors to accept tracking before they can read a page. This makes privacy a normal design choice rather than a later addition.
Nocterra also avoids a browser-accessible administration backend on the public website for normal publishing. It does not need a public login screen, online editor, database administration panel or plugin marketplace to serve ordinary pages. Because those components are not part of the normal model, Nocterra avoids several common attack paths found in many database-driven CMS installations.
Control is also about portability and upgradeability. A Nocterra site should not depend on a closed hosted platform, a subscription-only theme, a proprietary page builder, a database structure that only one vendor understands or a set of third-party plugins that may stop receiving maintenance or introduce backdoors or hidden telemetry concerning you, your passwords and your visitors. Designs, templates, content, configuration, extensions and add-ons should remain inspectable and maintainable so that a site can be repaired, moved, upgraded and understood.
This does not mean that every Nocterra site is automatically secure, accessible or independent. It means that the system is designed to support careful publishing practices: clear source files, predictable output, controlled deployment, explicit metadata, readable structure, free software, fewer hidden dependencies and a maintainable extension model.
Development of Nocterra began around the time PHP 5.6 reached the end of its official support, while that version continued to be used in existing hosting environments for a considerable time. Nocterra was developed from the outset so that it could also function in such existing environments. The first public release appeared in June 2019 and compatibility with PHP 5.6 is still retained as far as reasonably possible.
There is a deliberate design choice behind this. The end of vendor support does not automatically mean that technically useful equipment or software must be replaced or disconnected from a network. Just as older computers, operating systems and other technology can remain responsibly operational and accessible, the actual risk depends on what a system does, which functions are exposed, what data and privileges are involved and how the surrounding environment is arranged. The relevant question is therefore not only how old is this system?, but above all how is it used and controlled?
Nocterra therefore deliberately keeps its own public attack surface small. The normal CMS model contains no public authoring portal, user registration, WYSIWYG editor, upload environment or CMS-specific mechanism for managing users and credentials. Code belonging to a site, extension or add-on comes from source controlled by the site owner. From the CMS itself, publicly supplied input therefore consists mainly of web requests and URL processing, unless a site or add-on deliberately introduces additional interactive functionality.
Long-term compatibility and security are therefore not opposing goals. By deliberately limiting responsibility and public exposure, existing infrastructure can remain useful for longer without unnecessarily forcing users into a continuous cycle of upgrades and replacement.
Nocterra is not limited to a fixed core. Every page can be extended by integrating PHP code, and the CMS has built-in support for extensions and add-ons. Extensions can add functionality while remaining part of the normal Nocterra installation model. Add-ons can provide larger or more specialised functions where that is a better technical fit.
The difference from many plugin-driven systems is that Nocterra does not rely on a marketplace churn model in which site owners are pushed towards recurring subscriptions, abandoned components, incompatible themes or opaque vendor-controlled update paths. Extensions and add-ons should strengthen the wider free-software project, remain inspectable and be maintainable without weakening portability or user control.
Nocterra builds on experience from two earlier ASK-Solutions projects. BackPage, whose first version appeared in 1998, worked with structured source files, generally available tools and generated website output. Synergos later deliberately explored a more interactive model using an SQL database, web-based administration, WYSIWYG editing, products, ordering and payment handling.
This development was not a simple sequence of versions in which each system merely gained more features. Synergos demonstrated both the possibilities and the continuing maintenance and security burden of a strongly integrated public administration environment. With Nocterra, the experience from both projects was reconsidered. Source-based publishing once again became central, while browser-based authoring, user management, payment handling and webshop maintenance were not made necessary parts of the normal CMS model.
After The Great Server Crash™, which had taken place several years earlier, Synergos was not rebuilt as it had existed before. Very early in 2019, the separate Nocterra project was then started. Useful ideas and experience from both BackPage and Synergos were reconsidered and combined in a different technical direction. The first public release of Nocterra appeared in June 2019.
Nocterra is a project of ASK-Solutions. It gives concrete technical form to questions concerning knowledge, freedom, dependency and ownership: how can people and organisations publish information and use systems without unnecessarily transferring practical control over them to a single vendor, platform or technical ecosystem?
Nocterra is therefore about more than generating web pages. The choice of free software, understandable source files, portable sites, limited public administration functionality, long-term compatibility and inspectable extensions and add-ons is connected to the same question: can a site owner continue to understand, maintain, move, adapt and use the system when vendors, infrastructure or circumstances change?
Nocterra is deliberately general-purpose. Its architecture is suitable for a wide range of applications, including websites for organisations and businesses, professional practices, documentation, projects, editorial sites and custom web applications. The same principles of maintainability, portability, privacy, accessibility and practical control apply throughout.
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