A writer-first editor
Markdown, images, video, code, buttons and product cards as drag-and-drop blocks, with autosaved drafts.
Publishing & membership
Inkwell
Blog, newsletter and paid membership from one system.
Inkwell is a publishing platform for content teams: editor, themed website, email newsletter and membership in one place. A post can go to the site and to subscribers' inboxes at once, and paid posts are gated by membership tier automatically.
Try it now
This interactive demo runs in your browser with fictional sample data, and your changes stay in your browser. Download the kit for the complete system.
Core features
For teams publishing brand content, industry news, product update newsletters or paid research.
Web and email together
Publish to the site, send by email, or both. Email templates adapt to phones.
Members and subscriptions
Free and paid tiers with per-post visibility. Connect Stripe to charge monthly or yearly.
SEO ready
Sitemaps, structured data and social cards are generated, with per-post titles and descriptions.
Themes and languages
Switch themes or build a custom one; admin and site both support Chinese.
Data and integrations
Built-in traffic and subscriber analytics, a content API and webhooks; it can also run headless.
How teams use it
- 01
Company blog
Marketing schedules case studies and industry articles that search engines keep indexing.
- 02
Customer newsletter
Monthly product and trade-show news goes to subscribers, and open rates shape the next issue.
- 03
Paid research
Reports are visible to paying members, who subscribe and pay on the site.
Download and deploy
The kit contains the service definition, a settings template, a one-command installer and a guide. The installer generates secrets, prepares the database and waits until the service is ready.
Download the kit
inkwell.zip
Start in three steps
- Unzip the downloaded kit
unzip inkwell.zip - Open a terminal in the folder and run the installer
cd inkwell && sh install.sh - Open in your browser
http://localhost:3020
First run
Open the admin panel (address in the kit guide) to create the admin account, set the site name, logo and language under Settings → General, and turn on subscriptions under Settings → Membership.
Requirements
- Docker
- Docker 24+ with Docker Compose v2
- Free memory
- ≥ 2 GB
- Disk space
- ≥ 5 GB
- OS
- macOS, Linux, or WSL2 on Windows
Services
webWebsite, admin and APIdbMySQL posts and members
What's in the kit
- Public website with default theme
- Writing admin with Chinese UI
- Members, subscriptions and newsletters
- Content API and webhooks
- One-command installer (with MySQL)
What we can tailor for you
For production rollout, connections to your existing systems or brand customization, we can take it from here.
Let’s talk- A custom theme in your brand
- Migrating posts from an old blog or WeChat account
- Company email sending and payments
- Headless content for your main website
FAQ
- Can I use my own domain?
- Yes. Deploy to a server, change the site URL and put an HTTPS reverse proxy in front. The README has an example.
- Why don't member sign-in emails arrive?
- Member sign-in uses email links, so configure an SMTP sender in the settings file.
- Can I import existing posts?
- Standard export files import directly; we can convert other sources.
- Is it suitable as a company website?
- For content-led sites, yes. For complex catalogs or inquiry forms, use it as the content back end of your main site.