Launch HN: Cosmic JS (YC W19) - API-first drop-in replacement for WordPress
Hey HN,

I'm Tony, one of the cofounders of Cosmic JS (YC W19) (https://cosmicjs.com). Cosmic JS is a drop-in replacement for WordPress that can power content for any website or app. We provide a web dashboard to create content and API tools and resources (REST and GraphQL) to integrate content into any new or existing project. Commonly referred to as a "Headless CMS", this eliminates the need to build and maintain your own CMS infrastructure. For a monthly fee, you use our CMS infrastructure and can focus on what really matters: building great products and user experiences.

My cofounder Carson and I met at a digital agency where we built and managed WordPress websites. We noticed that lots of development time was spent building and maintaining the CMS itself, sucking time away from core application development. Plus we encountered the same CMS problems over and over: automatic updates caused sites to crash, a client would decide to install a bunch of plugins that caused the site to crash, comment spam was a never-ending battle. We began looking for a better way to manage content.

This was 2014 and API services were becoming more popular (Stripe, Twilio, SendGrid etc were gaining traction in offloading non-core dev tasks), and it made sense that using an API could be a viable way to deal with content as well. So Cosmic JS was created to be the solution that we wanted to use: one click to add a new project, unlimited projects with a single login, a simple web dashboard to create content, and API tools and resources to integrate content into any new or existing website or app. No CMS infrastructure needed.

After much beta testing, we eventually released to the public in 2016. We're now powering production websites and apps for hundreds of teams around the world across various use-cases.

We know the market for a solution to this problem is big because WordPress, as of this posting, powers 30% of the web. That’s 75,000,000 websites (source: https://www.whoishostingthis.com/compare/wordpress/stats/). Plus the need for dynamic content extends beyond websites. Mobile, IOT and other emerging tech are increasingly requiring dynamic, easily integrated content.

This is a hard problem to solve because a CMS has to satisfy the needs of both developers and content creators. We're different than other headless CMS providers because lots of effort has been made to make the CMS admin dashboard and content integration process as easy as possible for both the developer and content creator. We’ve been told “it doesn’t get much simpler”. We’re also very committed to education and community. We're the only headless CMS that comes with a community of developers built-in providing hundreds of apps, extensions, and integrations to learn best practices and teach others. You can get up and running with a variety of use-cases in just a few clicks. And we have a free plan that rewards contributors with a free personal Bucket forever.

Check out some of the apps built with Cosmic JS: https://cosmicjs.com/apps.

We're excited to be participating in Y Combinator for the W19 batch to help more teams avoid the pain of CMS infrastructure management so they can focus on building great products.

We'd love to hear your feedback and learn more about your personal experiences building content-powered websites and apps!