How a GitHub Outage Affects (or Doesn’t Affect) CrafterCMS

TL;DR: CrafterCMS websites and content operations continue uninterrupted during a GitHub outage. CrafterCMS is not dependent on GitHub (or GitLab or any other Git hosting service) for content delivery or authoring. GitHub may play a role in DevOps workflows, but content creation and site functionality remain fully operational.

When GitHub Goes Down, CrafterCMS Keeps Going

During a recent GitHub outage, some teams experienced trouble pushing changes and syncing code. Naturally, questions arose from users and developers:

• “Does a GitHub outage impact CrafterCMS?”
• “Will it affect my ability to manage or deliver content on my website?”

The short answer: No, CrafterCMS operations are not affected by GitHub outages.

Let’s dig into why that’s the case by understanding the difference between CrafterCMS's internal architecture and GitHub’s role in development workflows.

Git Is Not GitHub

First, it’s important to distinguish between Git (the version control system) and GitHub (a cloud-hosted Git service). CrafterCMS is built on Git as a versioned, file-based content repository, but it is not dependent on GitHub or any external Git service.

CrafterCMS embeds the open-source Git library directly into its authoring system. This allows CrafterCMS to manage:

• Content and media assets

• CSS and JavaScript resources

• Groovy scripts and other CMS logic

• All associated version history

• Git branches for larger content changes, redesigns, and site expansions

This Git-based repository is local to your CrafterCMS authoring environment. It runs independently of GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or any remote Git hosting solution.

Read more: Git vs GitHub vs Gitlab

Authoring and Delivery: Decoupled by Design

CrafterCMS follows a decoupled CMS architecture that separates authoring from delivery. Here's how each sub-system works:

Content Authoring System

• Embeds a Git repo to manage content, code, and version history

• Offers a UI (Crafter Studio) for editors and developers to create and manage digital experiences

• Stores changes locally in Git and provides full version control

• Publishes content to the delivery system via event-based or manual publishing

Content Delivery System

• Completely independent from Git or GitHub

• Uses an in-memory, high-performance store of published content (and is also stateless and serverless)

• Delivers content to websites, mobile apps, APIs, and other channels

• Guarantees availability and speed, even if the authoring system or GitHub is offline

• Scales easily and elastically (no database to worry about)

Because of this architecture, live websites powered by CrafterCMS continue to run normally even if GitHub or the authoring system is unavailable.

GitHub’s Role in DevOps, Not Content Ops

While CrafterCMS is not dependent on GitHub, developers often integrate it into their DevOps workflows for convenience. We call this DevContentOps.

For example:

• Developers can push Groovy scripts, templates, and SPA code (React, Vue, etc.) to a remote GitHub repo

• Easy Git operations can be used to sync content between environments (e.g., moving content from production to developer machines, and moving code from Dev environments to QA, Staging, and Production environments)

• GitHub Actions or other CI/CD tools can deploy code to CrafterCMS environments

These workflows improve collaboration and automation, but if GitHub is down, only those Git-based DevOps tasks are delayed. Content editing, publishing, and site functionality remain unaffected.

Real-World Impact of a GitHub Outage on CrafterCMS

To summarize what is and is not affected by a GitHub outage:

CrafterCMS: Git-Powered, Not GitHub-Dependent

CrafterCMS’s architecture is purpose-built for enterprise-grade resilience, scalability, and flexibility. By embedding Git directly into the CMS, CrafterCMS ensures:

• Full version history of all content, configuraiton and code

• No lock-in to any third-party Git hosting provider

• Uninterrupted content operations, even when external services are down

You can optionally use GitHub, GitLab, or another Git provider for external workflows, and CrafterCMS will never rely on them for core functionality.

Learn More

To explore the technical architecture in more depth, check out the CrafterCMS Architecture Guide for Architects:
👉 CrafterCMS Architecture Overview

Have questions about how CrafterCMS fits into your DevOps or content workflows? Get in touch with us; we're happy to help you architect a resilient, Git-powered digital experience platform.