shadcn/ui CMS — UnfoldCMS

A Year of Building With shadcn: 10 Patterns That Survived Production

Ten tactical shadcn/ui patterns that survived 12 months and 205 admin pages in production. Form schemas, DataTable columns as data, theme switching via CSS variables, Sheet+Dialog composition, server-side state, variant discipline, type-safe URLs, server-action pattern. Copy-pasteable, real code.

Hamed Pakdaman

July 24, 2026 · 11 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

shadcn/ui Roadmap and Our CMS: How We Track Upstream Changes

shadcn ships 6-7 releases per month. Our CMS runs 51 components, 18 modified. The bi-weekly audit workflow that keeps our fork in sync with upstream without breaking — pin commits, track modifications, audit cadence, when to fork hard.

Hamed Pakdaman

July 24, 2026 · 9 min

Self-Hosted CMS shadcn/ui CMS

shadcn CMS for Agencies: Why Client Handover Becomes Easy (2026)

The agency case for shadcn-based CMSs. Per-client themes from one codebase via Tailwind v4 CSS variables. Plugin-bloat eliminated. Flat licensing vs per-site SaaS. Real 3-year cost math for 10 client sites.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 10, 2026 · 10 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

Why We Chose shadcn/ui Over Radix Themes for Our CMS Admin

Two years and 205 admin pages later: why shadcn/ui beat Radix Themes for a production CMS admin. The comparison most blog posts get wrong, the trade-offs we hit, when Radix Themes is the better pick.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 10, 2026 · 9 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

Theming a shadcn CMS: 3 Themes from One Codebase

UnfoldCMS ships three production themes from one codebase via Tailwind v4 CSS variables. No build per theme, no duplicated components. Adding a fourth theme is one file. Architecture, migration cost, what doesn't theme well.

Hamed Pakdaman

July 11, 2026 · 8 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

Customizing the shadcn Admin: Fork-and-Modify Beats Vendor Widgets

Vendor widget APIs limit what you can change in a CMS admin. A shadcn-based admin lets you fork any file and modify it like any code in your repo. Why fork-and-modify wins over 12 months, and where vendor widgets are still the right pick.

Hamed Pakdaman

July 9, 2026 · 9 min

Headless CMS shadcn/ui CMS

shadcn CMS vs Strapi: Honest Admin UX Comparison (2026)

Strapi is the most popular self-hosted headless CMS. UnfoldCMS is the only one with admin built on shadcn/ui. Honest comparison on stack, hosting, plugins, licensing, when each one fits.

Hamed Pakdaman

July 8, 2026 · 9 min

Self-Hosted CMS shadcn/ui CMS

Open-Source CMS Built on shadcn/ui: What Source-Available Means

A shadcn-based CMS can ship under MIT (Payload), AGPL (Directus), or source-available (UnfoldCMS). Which license matters depends on whether you self-host, fork, redistribute, or run multi-tenant. The honest licensing picture, plus when each one fits.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 8, 2026 · 9 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

shadcn/ui in Production: 1 Year, 51 Components, 210 Admin Pages — Lessons

A year of building UnfoldCMS on shadcn/ui — 51 components, 210 admin pages, real customers. The architecture lessons that survived production: composition over configuration, owning the code, forms as primitives, tables as data.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 8, 2026 · 11 min

CMS shadcn/ui CMS

The Shortest Path from shadcn Dashboard Template to a Real CMS

A shadcn dashboard template ships the visible part of a CMS in 10 minutes. The next 35-50 days are spent building everything you don't see — auth, roles, media, scheduler, SEO. Honest scope, shortest pragmatic path, when to bail on the DIY route.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 8, 2026 · 9 min

Web Development shadcn/ui CMS

Build a Blog CMS with Next.js + shadcn/ui in 30 Minutes

Step-by-step tutorial: spin up a working blog CMS with Next.js front-end and shadcn/ui admin in 30 minutes. No Docker, no cloud account, just PHP + Node + MySQL. Real admin (51 shadcn components, 205 pages), real public API.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 8, 2026 · 9 min

Headless CMS shadcn/ui CMS

shadcn CMS vs Payload: Honest Admin UX Comparison

UnfoldCMS and Payload share an audience and almost nothing else. UnfoldCMS is a Laravel monolith with admin built on shadcn/ui. Payload is headless Node.js. Side-by-side on architecture, stack, hosting, pricing — and where each one wins.

Hamed Pakdaman

June 8, 2026 · 9 min