The tiny CMS for static websites your clients can edit.
Add ColbeEdit to any existing HTML website and give clients a safe, focused way to update text and images — without WordPress, a database, or the risk of breaking the design.
See it in action
ColbeEdit puts editing controls directly on the live page, so clients can work without learning a traditional CMS dashboard.
Welcome to our studio
We create beautiful websites for businesses that want to stand out in a crowded market.
Click editable text. Type. Save.
Your client sees a subtle edit button on every piece of content you've marked editable. They click, type their change, and hit save. The page is updated instantly — no admin panel, no publishing confusion.
- 1 You mark editable areas with
class="colbe-content" - 2 Client sees a clean inline editor, nothing else
- 3 Changes save directly into the HTML — no database
Hover, click Replace, upload.
When a client needs to update a team photo, product image, or hero shot, they hover the image and click Replace. ColbeEdit handles the upload and — when galleries are involved — updates the linked lightbox image too. Already-uploaded photos can be reused from the built-in searchable media library.
- 1 Client hovers any editable image
- 2 Uploads a new file or picks one from the library
- 3 The page and linked lightbox image are updated together
Never crop out the wrong thing.
When a client replaces an image, they can drag a focus point to tell ColbeEdit which part of the photo matters most. At different screen sizes, the crop adjusts around that point — so faces and key subjects always stay visible.
- 1 Client replaces an image
- 2 Drags a dot to the important part of the photo
- 3 Desktop, tablet, and mobile crops all respect it
Built-in tools that save you hours per site
Beyond inline editing, ColbeEdit ships a small set of designer-grade utilities that handle the boring parts of client handoff — image optimisation, media reuse, and editing pages where elements overlap.
Smart media library
Every uploaded image lands in a searchable library you can pick from instead of re-uploading the same logo ten times. Built-in tools show which page uses each image, batch-delete every unused image in one click, rename a file and automatically rewrite every reference across all pages, and crop server-side without downloading anything. Photo cleanup that used to take an FTP session takes thirty seconds.
Watch demo videoOptimise to WebP — one image or a whole site
Convert an individual JPG, PNG or GIF to WebP from the media library, or use Optimise All to process every compatible image still in use across the site. Conversion is available when the host provides GD or Imagick with WebP support — no separate image-optimisation plugin required.
Watch demo videoImage focal point & smart sizing
Click any image, drag the gold crosshair, and the part of the photo you care about stays visible no matter how aggressively the layout crops it on mobile. The same modal sets exact width & height, picks an object-fit mode (cover / contain / fill), and zooms the preview — perfect for hero banners, team portraits and any image whose face keeps getting cut in half on phones. Touch-friendly: works on iPad too.
Settings dashboard & role-based access
A non-technical admin panel configures edit mode (auto-detect vs explicit colbe-content), upload folder, session timeout, max file size and allowed extensions — no PHP editing. Separate admin and client passwords keep settings, password changes and dangerous operations out of clients’ hands while letting them edit text, swap images and rearrange widgets freely. An unsaved-changes guard warns before any accidental tab close.
Mark mode
When Explicit only mode is active, only elements marked with the colbe-content class are editable by the client. Mark mode lets you add or remove this class visually, directly on the page — without editing the HTML code manually. Use it to choose exactly which parts of the page the client is allowed to edit, while keeping the rest of the design locked.
Watch demo videoFlatten mode
Activate the crosshair, click any element that's covering the text you need to reach — an absolute-positioned hero overlay, a decorative pseudo-element holder, a sticky banner — and ColbeEdit temporarily strips its class, id and inline style so the underlying content becomes editable. One click restores it. The saved HTML stays untouched.
Watch demo videoButtons & links editor
Hovering any link on the page reveals a small Edit link pill. One click opens a modal that lets the client change the button text, switch the target between URL, Email, Phone or WhatsApp (auto-formatted as mailto: / tel: / wa.me/), toggle open in new tab, pre-fill a WhatsApp message, or remove the link entirely. No more “can you change my Contact button to a WhatsApp chat?” tickets.
Alt-text prompt — built-in SEO
After every image replacement, ColbeEdit asks for a one-line alt text — pre-filled with the existing description so it’s easy to keep or refine. A clear description supports accessibility for screen readers and helps search engines understand the image. Skip leaves the previous text untouched.
Watch demo videoPage switcher — navigate between all pages from the toolbar
The page-name area in the toolbar is now a dropdown listing every .html file found on the site, grouped by subfolder. Jump straight into editing any page without typing a URL. An unsaved-changes guard prompts before leaving so nothing is lost.
Dockable toolbar — top, bottom, left or right
Four small icons at the end of the toolbar let you dock it to any screen edge. Top (default) pushes page content down and automatically shifts any site fixed/sticky headers out of the way. Left/Right turns the toolbar into a 190 px sidebar with vertically stacked buttons. Position is remembered in localStorage.
Edit the link around a gallery image
When an image is wrapped in an <a href> (as in most gallery templates), the image overlay shows a 🔗 Link button alongside Replace and Focus. One click opens the link editor for the parent anchor — change the URL, pick from the media library, or remove the link entirely, without touching the image itself.
Safe History — one-click restore
Before every Save, ColbeEdit snapshots the page to /colbeedit/backups/ with a timestamp. The Safe History panel lists every snapshot, previews any of them in a new tab, and restores the chosen version with one click — and the restore itself creates a fresh snapshot first, so it is also undoable. Client deleted a paragraph by accident? Rolled back in five seconds.
Self-contained widget zones
Upload a ZIP of HTML/CSS/JS/images at any spot on the page and ColbeEdit renders it inside a sandboxed iframe — perfect for a calculator, a video player, an interactive map, a 3D viewer or a small Vue/React island. A glowing drop-bar lets you place the zone exactly between two sections (Alt to target the parent), an Auto-Fit button sizes the iframe to its content, and a side-dockable Widgets panel lists every zone on the page for quick reordering, replacing or removal. Need a video instead of a ZIP? Paste a YouTube, Vimeo or direct .mp4 URL and ColbeEdit wraps it for you, and the hover toolbar now exposes both width (100%, 60%, 600px or auto) and height, so a widget sandwiched between two columns fits the slot exactly.
Flexible navigation — drag-and-drop site menu
A new 🧭 Nav toolbar button (admin only) opens a panel that scans every .html page in your site and lets you build the menu by dragging pages into a tree. Pick Header bar, Megamenu or Hamburger (left/right), set a brand label and accent, background and text colours, drop nodes on the top/middle/bottom of a row to reorder or nest, add custom links and toggle a language switch that maps every visitor to the same page in every other language — missing translations greyed-out. Saved to colbeedit/nav.json (previous version snapshotted to Safe History), auto-propagated to every page on save, and rendered on the live site by a tiny colbeedit/nav.js runtime — one cache-busted <script> tag, no rebuild. One-click Remove nav from all pages wipes everything to start fresh.
Multilanguage editing — built for Switzerland
ColbeEdit detects sibling-language versions of the same page (index.html, de/index.html, fr/index.html, it/index.html — DE / FR / IT / ES / PT / NL and more) and adds a flag dropdown to the toolbar: pick Edit Deutsch, Edit Français, Edit Italiano to jump-edit each language. A dedicated Translate panel compares the current page to a source language, lists every block as OK / Same as source / Empty / Marked, lets the client copy text from the main language with one click and flag blocks as needs translation — persisted across saves with a subtle dashed outline on the page. Admins also get + Create translation in the language menu — one click copies the current page into the right folder, auto-rewrites relative asset paths (so shared images/, css/ keep working from the subfolder) and pre-flags every editable block so the helper highlights exactly what to translate next. The panel auto-refreshes after each save. Added a new widget to the original after translation? One click on ↻ Re-sync Deutsch from English in the language menu rebuilds the German copy from the live English page (the previous version is snapshotted to Safe History first — nothing is lost), with every block re-flagged for translation. No add-on, no database.
Gallery & lightbox aware
ColbeEdit detects HTML5UP-style galleries, blocks accidental lightbox triggers while editing, and on save injects a tiny patch so the lightbox keeps working with the new WebP files — without modifying your template's JavaScript.
Backed-up saves & auto-reload
Before overwriting a page, ColbeEdit creates a timestamped backup. When clean-up tools like Flatten have been used, the editor reloads automatically after save so the client sees the version just written to disk.
Deploy in minutes, not hours
No CLI, npm or database setup. Upload the package, ensure its working folders are writable, and ColbeEdit is ready.
Mark editable areas
Add class="colbe-content" to the HTML elements your client should be able to edit. That's it. Everything else stays locked. You can also mark or unmark editable areas later using the visual Mark tool.
Your headline here
</h1>
Upload the files via FTP
Upload the ColbeEdit package to hosting that meets the server requirements: PHP 7.4+, the required extensions, HTTPS, security-rule support and write access. No database, npm install or build step.
Hand off the edit URL
Send your client a single URL. They log in with a simple password, and editing is live — directly on the page they see every day. No dashboard. No settings to get wrong.
→ Client is ready to edit
Your template. Your rules.
ColbeEdit works with standard HTML/CSS/JS and is designed to preserve your existing layout, lightboxes, animations and carousels.
Any static template
Works with HTML5UP, ThemeForest templates, hand-coded HTML, and anything else that's standard HTML/CSS/JS. No template engine to learn.
One class to activate
Add class="colbe-content" to the elements your client may edit. Everything else stays protected.
Deploy in minutes
Upload the ColbeEdit package via FTP. No database, CLI or build step. Compatibility depends on the required PHP extensions, HTTPS, security-rule support and write access—check the host first.
Client-safe editing
Clients update only the content and tools you enable. Your template files, CSS and page-level permissions remain under the designer's control.
White-label handoff
No visible ColbeEdit branding is injected into your client's website. The editor is yours to present as part of your service.
Built for existing front ends
ColbeEdit is designed to work alongside common lightboxes, scroll animations, carousels and galleries while preserving the site's visual structure.
Like editing a document.
No admin dashboard. No settings menus. No publishing workflow. Just click on the thing you want to change, update it, and save.
Click, type, save
Edit text directly on the page. Click any editable area, type your change, and hit save. What you see is what visitors get.
Replace photos easily
Hover over an image, click Replace, and upload your new file. No resizing, no FTP, no asking the developer.
Focus point control
Drag a dot to mark the most important part of a photo. ColbeEdit makes sure it stays visible at every screen size.
No publish confusion
What you save is what visitors see — instantly. There's no draft/publish workflow, no approval queue, no staging environment.
Works on phone and tablet
ColbeEdit is designed for simple edits on touch devices too. Update opening hours from your phone, any time.
Nothing to break
You can edit only the content and tools your designer enabled. The underlying template and CSS remain outside the normal editing workflow.
"Like editing a document. I just click the text, change it, and save. I haven't had to call my designer in months."— How your clients will describe ColbeEdit
ColbeEdit vs WordPress
for small static sites
ColbeEdit is not a WordPress replacement for blogs, shops or dynamic sites. It is intentionally small — and that's the point.
| Feature |
ColbeEdit
Recommended for small sites
|
WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Database | ✓ None needed — content saves into the HTML file itself | ✗ MySQL/MariaDB required on every host |
| Hosting | ✓ Compatible PHP 7.4+ hosting with the required extensions, HTTPS, security-rule support and write access | Needs database, more RAM and regular server-side updates |
| Page speed | ✓ Static HTML is CDN-ready and easy to optimise for Core Web Vitals | Dynamic PHP + database unless fully cached with extra plugins |
| Client interface | ✓ Only the buttons your client needs — nothing else visible | Full admin area with menus, plugins, settings and options clients don't need |
| Maintenance | ✓ Upload once, update only when you choose to | Core, themes and plugins need ongoing updates to stay secure |
| Security surface | ✓ No database, no public /wp-admin login, CSRF-protected saves | Large ecosystem — Patchstack recorded 7,966 disclosed vulnerabilities in 2024; 96% affected plugins |
| Best for | ✓ Brochure sites, portfolios, restaurant sites, landing pages, local business | Blogs, shops, memberships, booking systems, complex dynamic sites |
| Price model | ✓ CHF 49 one-time, lifetime license | Free core, but hosting, premium themes and plugins add up monthly |
Honest note: ColbeEdit is not for blogs with hundreds of posts, e-commerce, member areas, booking systems, or complex database-driven websites. For those, WordPress or a full CMS is the right tool. ColbeEdit is for the many small, elegant static sites where simplicity and low maintenance matter more than dynamic features — and for designers who are tired of plugin updates.
Buy once. Use forever.
No subscription. One license per domain — a single payment activates ColbeEdit permanently on that site.
One-time payment · No subscription · No renewal
- ✓ One license per domain — buy one per client site
- ✓ Inline text editing — click, type, save
- ✓ Image replacement with lightbox support
- ✓ Focus point control for smart cropping
- ✓ Background-image tile support
- ✓ CSRF-protected saves and uploads
- ✓ White-label — no ColbeEdit branding on client sites
- ✓ Runs on PHP 7.4+ hosting that meets the published server requirements
- ✓ Zero database required
- ✓ No recurring license fee
Not sure yet? Try ColbeEdit free for 24 hours →
Enter your email and confirm the one-time link to create a private hosted demo — no installation or payment. The sandbox is deleted after 24 hours.
Common questions
Everything you need to know before deciding if ColbeEdit fits your workflow.
class="colbe-content" to the elements you want to make editable. No template engine or special structure is required.Make your next static website client-editable in minutes.
Buy ColbeEdit once, upload it to compatible PHP hosting, and give your client a focused editing experience — without WordPress, a database, or handing over the whole template.