Pure Blog is a minimal, forkable blog template built with Next.js that separates post content from metadata and ships with a draft preview mode for reviewing unpublished posts. It is designed as a clean starting point for developers who want their own blog without a heavy CMS, using plain Markdown files stored in directories.
What is Pure Blog?
Pure Blog is a Next.js project bootstrapped with create-next-app that renders a blog from Markdown files placed in the _posts folder. It takes Markdown posts with YAML frontmatter (title, description, tags) as input and produces a static blog site as output. The template deliberately keeps the posts content separate from the meta-post data, and its author designed it to make blogs clear and easy to use.
Key Features
- Content and metadata separation — posts live in
_postswhile changable metadata about posts and the blog is stored in_data/meta-post. - Draft support —
_draftsfolder holds unpublished posts, limited to one directory level. - Preview mode — visiting
/api/preview?mode=onloads drafts into the site;mode=offdisables preview. - Flexible post storage — public posts can be organized in folders under
_posts. - Simple frontmatter schema — each post uses
title,desc, andtagsin YAML frontmatter. - Built on Next.js — created with create-next-app, with a standard dev server via
npm run devoryarn dev. - Open source license — released under the GPL.
Who is it for?
Pure Blog is aimed at developers who want a minimal blog template they can fork and customize. It suits personal bloggers who prefer writing in Markdown and want to manage posts through files, and developers looking for a lightweight Next.js blog without pulling in a CMS or database.
Use cases
- Developers: fork the repository, write posts in
_posts, and deploy the Next.js app to Vercel or any Node hosting. - Writers with technical skills: keep drafts in
_draftsand preview them via the built-in preview mode before publishing. - Open-source enthusiasts: use it as a learning base for how to structure content and metadata separation in Next.js projects.
Note: The template does not include authentication, comments, or analytics by default — it is a clean, content-focused blog starter.
