Aether

Why “Aether”?

The name Aether CMS draws inspiration from the ancient concept of aether—known as the fifth element or quintessence. In classical philosophy and mythology, aether was believed to be the pure, invisible substance that filled the heavens and enabled the movement of light and celestial bodies. Unlike the four earthly elements (earth, air, fire, and water), aether was seen as refined, eternal, and ever-present—a perfect medium for the divine and the cosmic.

Just as aether was thought to connect and move everything in the universe, Aether CMS is designed to be the invisible, elegant force behind your digital content—lightweight, seamless, and powerful. It brings structure to complexity and provides the perfect space for your ideas to shine.

Aether CMS

Built on the Fifth Element of the Web, Aether is the invisible force behind great content.

Aether is a developer-first CMS and static site generator (SSG) that brings simplicity, speed, and flexibility to content management and site building. Whether you're creating a blog, documentation, or a full-scale website, Aether makes publishing effortless.

Inspired by the ancient idea of aether—the pure, ethereal substance that once was believed to carry light and connect the cosmos—Aether CMS is designed to act as that same kind of force: clean, fast, and always in sync with your workflow.

Aether comes with a fully integrated static site generator, allowing you to build an identical static version of your site directly from your content and theme configuration in the CMS. No plugins, no duplication—just one seamless source of truth for both content management and static output.

With built-in Markdown parsing, custom templating, and deployment-ready with one-click static site generation, Aether lets you focus on what matters: creating. It removes the friction between writing, designing, and preparing content for deployment, offering a developer-friendly experience from start to static.

Whether you're a developer who values performance or a content creator who needs intuitive control, Aether CMS is the modern solution for building fast, flexible, content-driven sites—without the usual complexity.

Under the Hood

Four Modules, All the Power

At its core, Aether CMS is built on just four carefully chosen modules, each selected for simplicity, performance, and security. This minimal yet powerful stack makes Aether lightweight, maintainable, and blazing fast — without sacrificing capability.

1. adm-zip

Handles theme installation and distribution with ease.
Aether uses adm-zip to upload custom themes or download and install themes directly from the marketplace — all in standard .zip format, with no manual extraction needed.

2. argon2

Secure admin authentication out of the box.
Used in combination with LiteNode’s signed cookies, argon2 provides robust, modern password hashing to ensure your admin panel is protected with best-in-class encryption.

3. LiteNode

Aether’s web engine, built for performance and simplicity.
A fast, lightweight, and independent Node.js framework that powers the entire CMS, including:

• An AST-based template engine (STE – Simple Template Engine) for rendering HTML
• Integrated Markdown file parsing (Aether uses marked only for Markdown body content)
• Automatic static file serving without server restarts
• Built-in .env support for configuration
• A full-featured cookie management system

LiteNode is the backbone of Aether, enabling full control and flexibility with zero external framework overhead.

4. marked

Fast and focused Markdown parsing.
Aether uses marked solely to parse the body content of Markdown files, while LiteNode handles frontmatter and metadata natively. This division keeps things fast and modular, with full support for Markdown-based content editing.

This minimalist module stack allows Aether CMS to stay fast, focused, and easy to understand — with zero bloat and full transparency for developers who want to build and extend with confidence.

Architecture Overview

How it works

• LiteNode is the engine that runs everything: routing, templating, file parsing, and static asset serving.
• adm-zip allows users to install themes as .zip packages from local files or the Aether Marketplace.
• argon2, paired with LiteNode's cookie system, secures the admin panel through modern cryptographic hashing.
• marked focuses only on parsing Markdown content; LiteNode handles metadata and rendering.

Next

Elevate Your Content to the Cloud Above and Start Your Aether Journey.