Netlify Create /

Netlify Create overview

Learn how Netlify Create can improve the way you edit and develop your site.

# What Netlify Create is

Netlify Create is a visual experience platform for building and operating enterprise websites, designed for teams working with a decoupled architecture.

# Key features

  • Content Source Interface: An engine that makes content from any source editable with Netlify Create.
  • No Production Dependencies: All required packages can be installed as development dependencies. You do not need to use Netlify Create in production.
  • Visual Editing: Your site runs in a preview window inside Netlify Create. Content changes are reflected immediately in the preview.
  • Two-Way Content Sync: Netlify Create also listens for changes from content sources and updates the preview immediately.
  • Inline Editing: In addition to traditional form fields, Netlify Create makes it possible for editors to change content by clicking directly on elements in the preview window.

# Learn how Netlify Create works

If you want a deeper understanding of how Netlify Create works, dig into our concept guides:

  • Netlify Create concepts overview: a deeper dive into how Netlify Create fits into your modern web stack and how its major elements work.
  • How Netlify Create works: walk through the core concepts of how Netlify Create works by following a developer's typical journey.
  • Content-driven development: empowering non-technical editors to make structural changes to a website without the help of a developer.
  • Reusable content: help content editors work faster by providing a starting point for content.
  • Structured content: how Netlify Create works with structured content, along with content modeling basics.
  • Two-way content sync: Netlify Create stores content back to the appropriate source, while also listening for changes from each source.

# What Netlify Create supports

We often get asked about supporting various frameworks and tools by folks who are just getting started with Netlify Create.

# Supported frameworks

Local development will support any framework that runs on a local port. Cloud projects are run within a Node-based environment by default, but can be customized.

Enabling automatic content reloading may require a little more code in some frameworks. See framework integration guides for specific cases.

# Supported content sources

Content Source Interface (CSI) supports any structured content source with read and write abilities via an API.

Today, we have production-ready CSI modules for Contentful and Sanity. If you need a specific content source, you can build your own CSI module or contact us for support.

# Supported code hosting platforms

The Netlify Create App can support any code hosting service. Cloud projects default to GitHub as the code host.

If your code is hosted on-premise, the Netlify Create App can support it by connecting to it with read-only permissions or via an isolated and secure container running on Netlify Create’s cloud.

# Supported hosting platforms

You can deploy and host your code anywhere you’d like, though we recommend hosting on Netlify to take full advantage of our composable platform.

Netlify Create can also be configured to automatically create a Netlify site when creating a new cloud project.

# Unsupported tools

In many cases, it may appear that your tool isn’t supported, but there is often a clear path to support:

  • It may actually work even if we haven’t explored it. We try to design and build as generically as possible.
  • There may be a workaround or you may have to write a bit of custom code to integrate the tool.
  • A tool may not work in a cloud project, but does in local development. This is typically a matter of us working with you to adjust the cloud environment.

Netlify Create is focused on composability and expanding our integrations. We’re typically open to adding any new integration. We prioritize new integrations based on customer demand.

If your tool isn’t supported, get in touch. We may already be working on official support.