Raneto – Markdown Knowledgebase Platform

My favorite for now stays mkdocs (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mkdocs.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mkdocs.org&#x2F;</a>). For relative small ones with the material theme (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;squidfunk.github.io&#x2F;mkdocs-material&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;squidfunk.github.io&#x2F;mkdocs-material&#x2F;</a>) and bigger ones (because of top bar) with bootswatch theme (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mkdocs.github.io&#x2F;mkdocs-bootswatch&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mkdocs.github.io&#x2F;mkdocs-bootswatch&#x2F;</a>). It works the same, just builds a site from your MD files but creates a static site which can be hosted anywhere (e.g. github&#x2F;gitlab pages via auto CI). Editing and creating your own theme is also easy and documented.<p>Installation is easiest I found for docs sites (pip install mkdocs) and it&#x27;s blazingly fast. Comes with good themes and proper responsive design (saw some issues in Raneto on my ios). Has proper live reloading and build in serve functionality.<p>For large projects (enterprise size) we have made our own version based on what I learned from the Polymer docs (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Polymer&#x2F;doc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;Polymer&#x2F;doc</a>) but removed the GAE requirement. Also, we are considering if using SO Enterprise is a good solution. Personally I&#x27;m in favor for in house docs and knowledge sharing for that. It&#x27;s so flexible and people are already used to it. But that is a different ball park considering the OP.<p>To end with a positive note. Raneto seems to support much of the same as mkdocs or any of its alternatives. It looks good and whilst static site is something I want I understand it is not a deal breaker for all. In addition, Raneto mentions authentication is built in which is a nice thing if I want to host for internal stuff on a public domain so external customers can also use it without requiring a VPN account. Overall, nice work! Not for today, but I have bookmarked it.

Looks great! One thing that would be nice would be the ability for Raneto to act as a static Docs generator. Looks like you have to use nodejs as the server as it stands. I&#x27;d like to be able to use a simple static http-server.

I wonder what makes this a _knowledge base_ as opposed to a flat file CMS?<p>A few months ago I left Evernote for my own implementation because I felt that Evernote gave me too little expressive power: No hierarchy, no typed relationships, no plugins. Basically, I was looking for a combination of outliner and concept map, combined with easy image handling. Plus, I wanted to easily add _applications_ like an ebook library, journaling, timelines of events, and generation of static websites and presentations.<p>I am a huge fan of simplicity and even toyed with PicoCMS by the same author as Raneto. Ultimately though, at least for me, a combination of a simple mysql database with markdown as content format gave me the power I wanted for my personal knowledge base, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowfox.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowfox.com</a>

I&#x27;ve been starting to suffer from Markdown fatigue and investigating tools that support RST or asciidoc. I wonder if this system might support those tools in the future?

Previous discussion: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7832991" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=7832991</a>

I love markdown! A similar project but without the need for a custom buildchain or serverside software is MDwiki.<p>```<p>mkdir my-site<p>cd my-site<p>curl <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mdwiki.info" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;mdwiki.info</a><p>echo &quot;# Hello World&quot; &gt; index.md<p>python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000<p>```<p>Now visit <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;localhost:8000" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;localhost:8000</a> in your browser and it&#x27;s live. Publish to Github Pages and you&#x27;re golden.

Why something like this instead of—for instance—a wiki?

Shameless plug, I&#x27;m working on Github flavored Markdown editor with graphing plugin[0]<p>[0]: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ivanceras.github.io&#x2F;spongedown-editor&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;ivanceras.github.io&#x2F;spongedown-editor&#x2F;</a>

What makes this a knowledge-base rather than a lightweight CMS?

For people who value full control and self hosting, Raneto looks like a good starting point to build from.<p>After having had to build knowledge bases in each company I worked in or go through the pain of implementing something bloated like Zendesk, I built a SaaS version of what I really wanted: the simplest knowledge base out there that stays out of your way.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;HelpSite.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;HelpSite.io&#x2F;</a><p>Don&#x27;t have Markdown support (yet) but we have a generous Free tier including custom domain (CNAME) support.