Create Your First Site in 5 Minutes

This tutorial is for first-time ReactPress end users. No repository clone or Docker setup required.

Step 1: Install the CLI

npm install -g @fecommunity/reactpress

Step 2: Initialize the site

In any empty directory:

mkdir my-blog && cd my-blog
reactpress init

init automatically:

1. Generates .reactpress/config.json and .env
2. Initializes the SQLite database
3. Starts API, Admin, and the default theme
4. Prints access URLs in the terminal

On success you should see output similar to:

Service	URL
Visitor site	http://localhost:3001
Admin	http://localhost:3001/admin/
API	http://localhost:3002/api
Health check	http://localhost:3002/api/health

Step 3: Log in to Admin

1. Open http://localhost:3001/admin/ in your browser
2. Log in with the default account: admin / admin
3. Change your password immediately after first login (Settings → Account)

Security

Never use the default password in production. Before deployment, update ADMIN_USER / ADMIN_PASSWD or change the account in Admin.

Step 4: Confirm the theme

init usually auto-installs and activates the featured theme (reactpress-theme-starter). Opening http://localhost:3001 should show the visitor site.

If the page is blank, in Admin:

1. Go to Appearance → Themes
2. Install reactpress-theme-starter from the catalog (or hello-world)
3. Click Enable, then refresh the visitor site

Step 5: Publish your first post

1. In Admin, Posts → New
2. Enter a title and Markdown body
3. Choose category / tags (optional)
4. Click Publish in the top right
5. View the result at http://localhost:3001

Step-by-step with screenshots: Create your first blog post.

Step 6: Verify the API (optional)

curl http://localhost:3002/api/health

A response of {"status":"ok"} means the API is healthy. For Headless integration, see Headless API guide.

Having trouble?

reactpress doctor          # environment and service diagnostics
reactpress logs --follow   # live API logs
reactpress stop            # stop services, then re-run init

More troubleshooting: Troubleshooting.

What to learn next

You are…	Recommended reading
New to the product	What is ReactPress?
Want a 60s Next.js blog proof	Build a blog with Next.js in 60 seconds
Content creator	User guide: Content management
Site administrator	Site settings & SEO
Frontend developer	Theme development
Full-stack / integration	Headless API
Ready to go live	Production deployment
Comparing WordPress	ReactPress vs WordPress
Self-hosting	Self-hosted CMS for React