Ditch the Clunky CMS: How I Built a Visually-Edited Website with My Own React Components Using Puck
For years, my relationship with Content Management Systems has been… complicated. As a React developer, I love building sleek, performant, and interactive user interfaces with my own custom components. But when it came to handing over content management to a non-technical team, I always hit the same wall. I was forced to either shoehorn my beautiful components into the rigid, pre-defined templates of a traditional CMS or spend countless hours building a custom solution from scratch.
The result was always a compromise. Either the marketing team was frustrated by a restrictive, clunky interface, or I was bogged down with maintenance on a complex, bespoke system. I was convinced there had to be a better way—a tool that would let me bring the power of a visual, drag-and-drop editing experience to my own React applications, without sacrificing ownership or flexibility.
Then, I found Puck. And it’s not an exaggeration to say it has completely revolutionized my workflow.
What is Puck? The Open-Source Visual Editor Your React App Deserves
Puck is a modular, open-source visual editor built specifically for React. Think of it as a headless CMS, but instead of a separate, opinionated interface, Puck is a React component that you drop directly into your application. This simple but powerful concept unlocks a new world of possibilities.
With Puck, you can define which of your own React components are editable and then empower your content team to build pages visually, dragging and dropping your components, editing text in-line, and seeing their changes in real-time. There's no vendor lock-in, you own your data completely, and because it's licensed under MIT, you can use it for anything from internal dashboards to commercial-grade websites.
My Experience: From Frustration to Freedom in a Few Lines of Code
I was initially skeptical. I’d been burned by "easy" solutions before. But the create-puck-app CLI had me up and running with a pre-configured Next.js example in under a minute.
The real "aha!" moment came when I configured my first custom component. I had a beautifully styled <HeroBanner> component in my design system that I wanted the marketing team to be able to use. With Puck, the process was incredibly straightforward.
I created a simple configuration file, imported my <HeroBanner> component, and defined its editable fields—a text field for the title, another for the subtitle, and an image upload field for the backgroundImage.
// A simplified look at a Puck config
const config = {
components: {
HeroBanner: {
fields: {
title: { type: "text" },
subtitle: { type: "text" },
backgroundImage: { type: "image" },
},
render: ({ title, subtitle, backgroundImage }) => {
return (
<div style={{ backgroundImage: `url(${backgroundImage})` }}>
<h1>{title}</h1>
<p>{subtitle}</p>
</div>
);
},
},
},
};
I rendered the <Puck /> editor component in my admin route, passing in this configuration. Instantly, my custom HeroBanner component appeared in the component tray of the Puck editor. I could drag it onto the canvas, edit the text directly on the page, and see the results live. It just worked. There was no complex API to wrangle, no database schema to migrate. It was my component, in my app, powered by a world-class visual editor.
Key Features That Make Puck a Game-Changer
After integrating Puck into a project, a few features immediately stood out as being transformative:
- Bring Your Own Components: This is the core magic. You're not limited to a pre-set library of generic blocks. You use the exact same React components that power your application, ensuring brand consistency and a seamless front-end experience.
- Developer-Friendly Configuration: The entire editor is configured with a simple JavaScript object. Defining components, fields, and validation rules is intuitive and lives right alongside your application code.
- Total Data Ownership: Puck doesn't host your data. When a user hits "publish," Puck simply returns a JSON object representing the page structure. You are in complete control of where and how you store that data—be it in a PostgreSQL database, a flat file, or any other storage solution you prefer.
- Framework Agnostic: While it's built for React, Puck plays nicely with all the major frameworks. The official documentation provides "recipes" for Next.js, Remix, and React Router, so you can get started quickly, no matter your stack.
- Inline Text Editing & Resizable Sidebars: The latest versions have introduced a polished user experience that rivals expensive, commercial WYSIWYG editors. The ability to click and type directly on the page is a feature content editors will love.
Ready to Build Your Own Visual Editor?
If you're a React developer who's tired of the limitations of traditional content management systems, I can't recommend Puck enough. It's the tool I've been waiting for—one that respects the power of a well-crafted component library while providing the intuitive, visual editing experience that content teams need to succeed.
The open-source community around Puck is thriving, with a helpful Discord server and a growing number of community-contributed plugins and custom fields.
Stop compromising. Head over to the Puck documentation to see a live demo and start building your own custom, visually-edited experiences today.
Explore the Puck Docs and View the Live Demo!
As I was building out the content templates for my team using Puck, I realized that a great layout tool is only as good as the design inspiration behind it. You can give an editor the best components in the world, but they still need a strong vision for how to arrange them. That’s where my other essential tool comes in.
Discover endless inspiration for your next project with Mobbin's stunning design resources and seamless systems—start creating today! 🚀 Mobbin has become my go-to resource for seeing how the world's best apps solve complex UI and UX challenges. Before I build a new page template in Puck, I browse Mobbin to get ideas, ensuring that the final product is not only functional but also beautiful and intuitive. It's the perfect complement to a powerful editing tool like Puck.
