README

BakeKit is a fully-featured CMS foundation built with CakePHP 5. Designed for developers who want to rapidly build web applications without reinventing the wheel, BakeKit offers everything a modern CMS should — including authentication, authorization, user roles, menus, widgets, settings, plugins, themes, and more — right out of the oven.

Why BakeKit?

As developers, we often start a project by building a core application — a blog, a store, a dashboard. Then comes the realization: an admin panel needs to be created. Then user management, roles, permissions, settings, menus... The list never ends. So we look into CMS platforms, only to find ourselves wrestling with monoliths, rigid structures, or systems that don't respect the MVC pattern or don't feel like true frameworks.

That’s where BakeKit comes in.

BakeKit is:

🍰 CakePHP-powered: Built on the fast, clean, and extensible CakePHP 5 framework.
🧩 Modular: Plugins and themes are first-class citizens.
🎛️ Customizable: Tweak everything from menus and permissions to layouts and widgets.
🔐 Secure: Leverages CakePHP's battle-tested security features, including CSRF, form tampering protection, hashed passwords, and more.
🛠️ Developer-Friendly: BakeKit uses CakePHP conventions and structure. If you know CakePHP, you already know BakeKit.

Core Features

✅ Admin panel (based on AdminLTE)
✅ Authentication and authorization
✅ Role and permission system
✅ Menu and action management
✅ Plugin and theme system
✅ Widgets and settings system
✅ Built-in CMS plugins: Shop, Blogger, Pages, Slideshow, FileManager, and more

Why CakePHP?

CakePHP is an elegant and expressive PHP framework that emphasizes convention over configuration. Unlike Symfony, which is complex and configuration-heavy, CakePHP allows for rapid development with a clean structure and robust defaults. It's also:

Lightweight and fast
Backed by a powerful ORM
Includes powerful baking tools (bin/cake bake)
Easy to learn but powerful enough for enterprise-level projects

BakeKit takes these strengths and adds a CMS layer, without sacrificing flexibility.

Who is it for?

Developers who want to build custom web apps quickly
Agencies looking for a reliable CMS foundation
CakePHP enthusiasts who want a full-featured backend without starting from scratch
Anyone tired of forcing WordPress, Symfony, or Laravel-based systems into things they were never meant to handle

Get Started

composer create-project bakewizard/bakekit myapp
cd myapp
curl -sS https://getcomposer.org/installer | php -- --install-dir=bin
bin/cake install
bin/cake server

🤝 Contributing

BakeKit is actively looking for contributors!

If you're a CakePHP developer (or want to become one), check out the issues and help improve BakeKit. Even small contributions like fixing typos, writing tests, or improving docs are welcome!

👉 How to contribute

Licenses

BakeKit includes third-party libraries, each under their respective open-source licenses:

AdminLTE — MIT License
TinyMCE — LGPL 2.1 License

Full license texts are available in the licenses folder.

License

MIT License

🔥 Ready to Bake?

With BakeKit, you're not starting from zero — you're starting with a warm, extensible CakePHP base, full of tools ready to power your next idea.

If you can make it, bake it with BakeKit!

bakewizard / bakekit

Maintainers

Details