Automad 2.0 Beta

Today I’m excited to finally share something I’ve been working towards for a long time: the Automad 2 beta is out.

If you’d rather experience it than read about it, you can try the live demo right now and explore Automad 2 directly in your browser. A fresh demo site is created automatically, so you can jump straight into editing and get a feel for the new workflow within seconds.

Automad 2 is not a small iteration on version 1. It’s a rethink of what a modern, lightweight CMS can feel like — both for people editing content every day and for developers who care about clarity, performance, and long-term maintainability. The goal was simple: keep Automad fast and predictable, but make it far more powerful and pleasant to use.

The first thing you’ll notice is the new Standard Lite theme. It’s a fresh, elegant multipurpose theme that works out of the box for a wide range of projects, from personal sites to small business pages. It’s intentionally minimal, but flexible enough to grow with your content.

Editing content has taken a big step forward. Reusable components let you group blocks once and reuse them across the entire site. Update a component in one place, and it updates everywhere. This makes it much easier to maintain consistent layouts and shared content without copy-pasting yourself into trouble.

Automad 2 also brings native multilanguage support, making it straightforward to manage content in multiple languages without hacks or workarounds. Combined with a new draft and publish workflow, you can preview changes safely before they go live, while auto-saving ensures nothing gets lost while you edit.

The editor itself has grown more capable and expressive. Code snippets now come with syntax highlighting, and there are many new block types available, including collapsible sections, callout boxes, and even Math/TeX support for more technical content. Behind the scenes, page versioning keeps track of changes and allows you to restore older versions of a page whenever you need to.

On the more practical side, Automad 2 finally adds SMTP email configuration for transactional emails and contact forms, making integrations more reliable and production-ready. All of this is wrapped in a completely refreshed dashboard that feels calmer, clearer, and more focused on the task at hand.

This is a beta release, and the documentation is still a work in progress. Some rough edges are expected, and feedback at this stage is incredibly valuable.

Try the live demo, explore the new editor, and see how Automad 2 feels in practice. If you like where it’s going — or if something feels off — I’d love to hear from you. Automad has always been shaped by real-world use, and this next version is no exception.