Using OctoberCMS without the CMS Module

If you are familiar with October's architecture, you know that the application comes with 3 "modules": Backend, System, and CMS. What each of these provides is fairly easy to understand based on the name alone: the Backend module handles the admin area, the System module provides essential functionality to the other modules, and the CMS module handles the frontend, public facing website.

What if you are only interested in using the Backend of OctoberCMS, without the CMS module or a theme? This trick will help you remove the CMS module from your application.

1. Update config/cms.php:
2. Remove the activeTheme value
3. Remove Cms from the loadModules array
4. Optionally, you may remove the 'backendUri' value if you want your application accessible from the root domain. i.e. https://www.myapp.com vs https://www.myapp.com/backend

And that's all there is to it! You now have a fully functional backend application using OctoberCMS!

If you are using composer, you can also remove the cms package from your composer.json. Please note this can lead to problems if any of your plugins register components, or references classes found in the CMS module, such as the Page class. Proceed with caution!