Why I Built My Own CMS (Again) — This Time with Laravel + Filament

BuildWithTall — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 14:35:53 +0000

Most developers don’t wake up thinking:

“You know what the world needs? Another CMS.”

And yet… here we are.

The Problem with Existing CMS (From a Developer’s POV)

I’ve worked with a lot of CMS platforms over the years — from WordPress to headless setups.

They all work… until you try to do something slightly different.

That’s when things get messy:

You fight plugins instead of building features
You bend your architecture around the CMS
You inherit years of legacy decisions you didn’t sign up for

At some point, I realized:

I wasn’t building products — I was working around the CMS.

The “What If” Question

So I started asking:

What if a CMS was built the way we build modern Laravel apps today?

Not constrained by legacy.
Not pretending to be everything for everyone.

Just:

Clean architecture
Developer-first
Extensible by design
Actually enjoyable to work with

Why Laravel + Filament?

If you’re in the Laravel ecosystem, this part will make sense.

Laravel gives you:

Structure without being restrictive
A clean service layer
First-class DX

Filament gives you:

A powerful admin panel out of the box
Forms, tables, actions — already solved
A consistent UI layer

Together, they solve 80% of what a CMS needs.

The remaining 20%?
That’s where things get interesting.

The Hard Parts (That No One Talks About)

Building a CMS isn’t about CRUD.

It’s about abstractions.

1. Content as Blocks (Not Fields)

What I wanted:

Flexible, composable content blocks

But that introduces problems:

How do you store them?
How do you version them?
How do you render them cleanly?

2. Editor Experience vs Developer Control

There’s always tension between:

Giving non-tech users flexibility
Keeping developers sane

Too flexible → chaos
Too strict → unusable

Finding that balance is harder than it sounds.

3. Plugin Architecture

I didn’t want:

“Just hack it into the codebase”

I wanted:

A system where features can be dropped in cleanly

Which means:

Discovery
Registration
Isolation
Extensibility points

I ended up building TallCMS, an open-source CMS powered by Laravel + Filament.

Current features:

Block-based page builder
Pages & posts
Publishing workflow (draft → scheduled → published)
Revision history
Media library
Menu builder
Plugin architecture

Still early. Still evolving.

Unexpected Lessons

1. Frameworks Matter More Than You Think

Working within Laravel + Filament constraints actually made things better.

It forced:

Consistency
Reusability
Less over-engineering

2. Agentic Coding Is Powerful… But Dangerous

I’ve been experimenting with AI-assisted development.

What I learned:

Without structure → chaos
With a clear plan → massive acceleration

I now always:

1. Generate a plan
2. Review it
3. Execute in controlled steps

3. CMS Is a Systems Problem

It’s not:

“Build pages”

It’s:

“Design a system that lets others build anything”

That shift changes everything.

Where This Is Going

I’m still exploring:

Better block composition
AI-assisted content creation
Multi-site architecture
Developer experience improvements

Curious What Others Think

If you’ve ever:

Built your own CMS
Fought with one
Or are happily using one

I’d love to hear:

What’s the one thing your CMS does really well — or really badly?

Closing

I’m building this as an open-source project called TallCMS.

Not trying to replace everything.

Just trying to make something that feels right for modern Laravel developers.

If you’re curious, happy to share more.

DEV Community: BuildWithTall

Why I Built My Own CMS (Again) — This Time with Laravel + Filament