FFS – Foundational Feature Server

When I started building my own freelance platform, I quickly realized that the standard approach — string together a CMS, a few plugins, a JavaScript framework, and a hosting service — just did not fit the way I work. I needed something I could own completely, extend without fear, and run on my own terms.

So I built FFS – Foundational Feature Server.

What FFS Is

FFS is a modern C++ web platform designed from the ground up for longevity, clarity, and control. It is not a content management system in the traditional sense. It is closer to a composable application runtime: a server that loads, manages, and orchestrates independent components — each a self-contained shared library — without any of them knowing about the others.

At its core, FFS is powered by Wt 4.x, a mature C++ web framework that compiles server-side UI directly into efficient HTML. There is no JavaScript framework to version-pin, no npm dependency tree to maintain, no client-side state synchronization to debug. The server is the source of truth.

The Architecture in Plain Language

Every page in an FFS site is a component — a .so shared library loaded at runtime. When a visitor navigates to /services, FFS loads services.ffs, renders the page, and returns HTML. When you deploy a new version of that component, you replace one file. The rest of the site keeps running.

Components share nothing except a thin SDK:

JsonDataObject — live-reloading JSON configuration with inotify file-watch
Replacer — a placeholder engine for personalising content
MdRenderer — a Markdown renderer with image float, captioning, and \n/\u200b line-break control
HtmlUtils — safe, rich-text HTML helpers

Configuration lives in plain JSON files. Change a value, save the file — the page updates in the browser within seconds, without a restart.

Multi-Language From the Ground Up

FFS was designed with internationalisation as a first-class concern, not an afterthought. Every piece of content can have a locale overlay:

content/services.json        ← base (English)
content/services_de.json     ← German overrides
content/services_tr.json     ← Turkish overrides

Locale overlays use field-level deep merge keyed by id or name. You only write what changes. Structural data — icons, URLs, visibility flags — stays in the base file and is inherited automatically.

Themes

FFS ships with three themes — Default (deep navy), Ocean (cool blue), and Forest (dark green) — each with a full set of component stylesheets. Switching themes is a single JSON value change; the browser receives only the delta CSS, with no page reload.

Where FFS Is Heading

FFS started as the infrastructure behind my freelance site. It is becoming something larger: a platform for building corporate web presences that integrate multiple applications — a blog, a services catalogue, a deliverables showcase, a contact system with OTP verification — into a single, coherent runtime.

The goal is not to compete with WordPress or Webflow. The goal is to give organisations that care about performance, stability, and long-term ownership an alternative that does not ask them to trust a dependency chain they cannot inspect or control.

If that sounds like the kind of platform your organisation needs, I would be glad to talk.

FFS is developed in C++23 with Wt 4.13, runs on Linux, and is deployable as a single container or bare-metal binary.