Deployment

Accent CMS supports two deployment models. Which one you choose depends on how frequently your content changes, whether you need on-demand features like media processing or plugins, and your hosting budget.

Two Deployment Models

Dynamic Server

Run Accent CMS as a long-lived process that renders pages on-the-fly:

accent serve --production

The dynamic server provides:

• Instant content updates (edit a markdown file, refresh the browser)
• On-demand image resizing and format conversion
• Full WASM plugin support at runtime
• Server-side caching with automatic invalidation

The --production flag requires a valid Standard or Pro license. All features work without a license in dev mode (accent serve), so you can evaluate everything before purchasing.

Static Build

Generate a directory of HTML, CSS, and assets that any web server can host:

accent build --output ./public --base-url https://example.com

The static build:

• Works with no license key (free)
• Produces files deployable to any CDN or static hosting provider
• Requires a rebuild and redeploy when content changes
• Runs plugins at build time only (no runtime plugin execution)
• Pre-processes all media at build time

Decision Guide

	Dynamic Server	Static Build
License	Standard or Pro	None (free)
Hosting	VPS, Docker, any server with a process manager	CDN, static host, any web server
Content updates	Instant (edit file, refresh)	Requires rebuild and redeploy
Plugins	Full runtime WASM plugin support	Plugins run at build time only
Media processing	On-demand image resizing	Pre-processed at build time
Best for	Dynamic sites, frequent updates, interactive features	Documentation, blogs, landing pages, portfolios

Both models produce the same HTML output. A site that works with the dynamic server will produce identical pages when built statically, so you can switch between them without changing your content or templates.

Local Preview with serve-static

After building your site, use serve-static to preview the output locally before deploying:

accent build --clean
accent serve-static
# Visit https://127.0.0.1:4403

The preview runs over HTTPS, which is what makes it a faithful check of service workers, mixed-content policies, and anything else that needs a secure context. Add --no-tls if you need plain HTTP instead:

accent serve-static --no-tls
# Visit http://127.0.0.1:4403

TLS Support

accent serve in development mode and accent serve-static both use HTTPS by default; accent serve --production stays on plain HTTP unless you pass --tls, because deployments normally terminate TLS at a reverse proxy. Two certificate modes are available:

• Self-signed (no --cert/--key): a certificate for localhost and 127.0.0.1, cached under the platform cache directory so its fingerprint is stable across restarts. Available with no license. Browsers warn on the first visit; the first-run output names the command that installs the certificate into your trust store to stop the warning for good.
• Custom certificates (--cert + --key): loads user-provided PEM files. Requires a Standard or Pro license.

# Self-signed TLS in dev mode (no license required, no flag needed)
accent serve

# Plain HTTP in dev mode
accent serve --no-tls

# Custom certificates (Standard or Pro)
accent serve --tls --cert /etc/ssl/cert.pem --key /etc/ssl/key.pem

Deployment Guides

Production Server

Set up Accent CMS as a production service with reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy), process management (systemd, Docker), license configuration, and performance tuning. Requires a Standard or Pro license.

Static Site Build

Generate a static HTML site and deploy to Cloudflare Pages, Netlify, GitHub Pages, Vercel, or any web server. Free; no license required.

Verifying a Release Download

Confirm a downloaded binary is authentic before deploying it: check the SHA-256 checksum, verify the GPG-signed checksums file when present, and audit the binary’s embedded dependency list. No license required.