Since October 2026, I’ve been a Certified Kirby Partner. It’s the highest level of Kirby’s partner program, and it’s not a badge you get by answering a multiple-choice quiz. Here’s what it covers, what it changes for your website, and why it matters even more in the age of AI.
What is Kirby?
Kirby is a CMS made in Germany. Like WordPress, it’s used to manage a website’s content, but with a very different philosophy. It runs without a database, and content is stored in simple files. That’s what’s called a flat-file CMS. The result is lightweight, fast websites that use very few server resources.
The admin interface, for its part, is built to measure for each project. The people who update the site only see what they need, nothing more.
I use it for some of my clients, alongside WordPress. And because it’s lightweight by nature, it’s also a great ally for eco-design, a topic close to my heart (I wrote about it in my article on low-carbon websites).
The Kirby partner directory
The Kirby team maintains an official partner directory, made up of freelancers and agencies from all over the world, selected after an evaluation of their work.
I was already listed. This year, when it was time to renew my partnership, I wanted to go further and apply for certification.
At the time of writing, the directory lists 56 partners, 20 of them certified. I’m also the only one of the 20 who speaks French.
What the certification covers
The certification is based on an in-depth assessment of a complete project. It covers 7 areas, and each one affects you directly, even if you never look behind the scenes.
- Code quality, so that any developer can pick up the site and keep it evolving.
- Performance, for pages that load fast, on mobile too.
- Security and privacy, to protect your site and your visitors’ data.
- Semantics and accessibility, for a site everyone can use and search engines understand well.
- Admin interface usability, so that updating content stays simple day to day.
- Responsiveness and modularity, for a site that adapts to every screen and can grow without being rebuilt.
- Code documentation, so that the project’s future doesn’t depend on a single person.
In other words, everything you don’t see on screen, but that makes the difference over time.
So where does AI fit in?
Today, AI can build a website in an afternoon. That’s real progress, and it’s now one of the tools of the trade.
But a website doesn’t stop at launch. It lives for years. It has to evolve, stay secure, and sometimes be handed over to someone else. That’s when what’s under the hood makes the difference.
After more than 12 years in web development, I’m convinced of one thing. The faster the tools get, the more experience it takes to make the right calls, the ones that will keep a site going 3 years from now. That’s the kind of decision-making this certification recognizes.
What it changes for you
For a client, a certification is reassuring before kicking off a project. After that, the collaboration does the rest.
On my side, I keep working the same way. Custom websites, no page builders, with the same focus on performance and eco-design. You can find my profile in the Kirby directory, and everything I offer on my Kirby CMS development page.
Got a Kirby project in mind, an existing site to take over, or just a question? Get in touch, I reply in English as well as French.