Kiln turns any static site, even one your AI just built, into one your client can edit by clicking it. The code lives in a GitHub repo you keep, or hand to your client to own. Never locked inside Kiln.
One set runs on your page and does the editing. One runs on Cloudflare and handles sign-in and commits. They work against a GitHub repo and the host you choose. No database, no build server.
Run both sets yourself for free, or let Kiln run them for you. See the three routes below.
AI builders ship gorgeous static sites and push them to GitHub. After that, every small edit means re-opening a chat with a robot. Kiln is the missing layer: the people who run the site edit it themselves, right on the page.
Your editors change words and pictures by clicking the page. The layout and design stay exactly as you built them.
Click any text and type. Bold, links, lists, headings, plus your own site styles as the palette, so type stays designed.
Click a photo to swap it, auto-resized. Drop images into articles, attach a PDF to any link. All versioned in Git.
Cards, galleries, document lists: duplicate, drag to reorder, remove. One click, layout untouched.
New post writes the article and its listing card in one atomic commit. No build pipeline, no waiting.
Every publish is a commit. Save drafts, schedule for later, browse a page's timeline, restore any version.
Add, rename, reorder navigation once. Kiln rewrites every page of the site in a single commit.
Add an email and a role. Editors sign in with Google and never touch GitHub.
Lock /members/ pages and PDFs at the edge. Invite people for 1 to 360 days.
Visitors load about 3 KB. The full editor loads only for signed-in editors, at /kiln.
The one-time setup is yours. For everyone you invite, to edit or to view, there is nothing to install.
You connect a GitHub repo and the worker, about ten minutes with the wizard. The repo can stay yours, or belong to your client. After that, editing happens at yoursite.com/kiln.
Anyone you add to change content: your client, their team, or you. Add their Google email, they sign in with Google and edit. No GitHub account, nothing to install. You can also limit an editor to certain pages, like just the blog.
People who only need the gated pages. Added the same way, by Google email, they sign in and the members-only pages and files unlock for as long as you set.
The full list: a static site, a free GitHub account, and a free Cloudflare account for the worker. There is no fourth thing.
WordPress can't really be hosted for free: it needs a database and an app server running around the clock, and someone has to pay for those. Kiln needs neither. Your HTML files are the database, a static host serves them, and one small free Cloudflare Worker handles sign-in, so when you self-host, the whole stack sits on free tiers. The paid routes exist only if you'd rather not run the worker, or not run anything at all.
| Edit on the page | Any static HTML | Backend to run | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kiln | Yes | Yes | One small worker | $0, open source |
| WordPress | Partly | No, PHP and themes | Server, DB, patches | $5 to 25+/mo |
| Squarespace, Webflow | Yes | No, their platform | n/a | $16 to 25+/mo |
| CloudCannon | Yes | SSGs only | n/a | $45+/mo |
| Decap, Sveltia | No, a form dashboard | Yes | None, Git | Free |
A route is just one choice: who runs the two moving parts, the sign-in worker and the GitHub App. The editor and your repo are the same on all three. Everything else follows from that one fork.
Free forever, open source (AGPL-3.0)
$4.99 / mo per site
$19.99 / mo per site
Which is for me? Comfortable in a terminal and want it free, start with self-host. Want to skip running the worker but keep your own host, Kiln Cloud. Want to touch none of it, fully managed. Your content lives in a GitHub repo you keep on all three, so you can change your mind later without moving anything.
A kiln turns soft clay into something that lasts. Kiln turns a click into a Git commit: plain HTML in a repo you control, with every version kept. Nothing to export later, because nothing was ever locked in.
KilnKILN_PROMPT.md into v0, Lovable, Bolt, or Claude and it wires your existing HTML for click-to-edit. On self-host the AI can point-and-run the whole setup with your own credentials.