Several months ago I became acquainted with a new website builder or CMS - it was called Osuny, and it was run by a co-operative called noesya, based in Bordeaux, France.
I first became aware of Osuny because it is used to power the website of the International Degrowth Network (the IDN), a group I’ve been involved with for a few months (degrowth is a particular personal interest of mine).
Osuny is used to power many organisations, sustainability-minded businesses, and those movements which are pushing to build a better world for all.
There was a lot that really appealed to me about both Osuny and the co-operative that was behind it. I wanted to write about my experiences, and to try and help introduce other similarly minded people to their work.
If I had to summarise - Osuny is one of the most lightweight, accessibility-first web platforms out there*.
*that I am currently aware of!
Who are noesya?
Before jumping into what makes Osuny so great, I wanted to share a little on the background of noesya. From their website (only available in French - which isn’t a bad thing), they are “committed to high-quality, eco-designed, aesthetic, ethical, and sustainable digital technology.”
Translation of the above: The Noesya cooperative is committed to high-quality, eco-designed, aesthetic, ethical and sustainable digital technology.
In short… we are a team of developers and we code accessible websites.
As a tech provider they have 3 main offerings:
- They develop effective tools to serve the common good, through the Digital Commons.
The Digital Commons is described by Wikipedia as “shared digital resources—such as software, knowledge, data, and cultural content—that are collectively produced and governed by a community and intended for public use”. - They build eco-friendly websites - energy-efficient sites that are highly accessible to users and which are (often) powered by sustainable* energy sources.
- They provide interactive web experiences with immersive online stories - so basically, websites and digital experiences that really connect with audiences.
*more on the topic of sustainable energy in regard web hosting etc later.
There is a lot that I love about noesya, not just in terms of the work they are doing, but in how they structure themselves. They seem to embody everything that can be good, or positive, about the web.
For example, take their structure. As a co-operative they are collectively owned and democratically controlled by their team members. So instead of profits being siphoned off at the top by investors or founders (as a typical web agency might function), profits get redistributed amongst team members. They will also have a say in how the business is run, ensuring they can meet any common economic, social or cultural needs.
On their website they also talk about their Manifesto - a set of guiding principles, where they talk about things like “loving to carry out quality work, the benefits of working as a team collectively on a project, the aim of being good craftsmen, making a decent living from their work and contributing to a better world”.Â
For me noesya embodies everything that is lacking from the world of web agencies and the wider tech industry and I think that many marketing agencies (not just development agencies) would learn a lot from thinking about what it means to be run as a co-operative.
Noesya created Osuny because they clearly felt there was a gap in the market, or a need, to create a website platform that was more aligned with how they believe the web should - hence the creation of Osuny.
What is the Osuny web platform?
Osuny is the web platform or CMS developed by noesya which enables organisations to have a very functional, sustainability and accessibility focused web presence.
You might think of it as an alternative to existing CMS platforms like WordPress or Squarespace - Osuny is similar but it really prioritises sustainability and accessibility above other features without it hampering the web experience.
Osuny is currently used to power all sorts of websites - the city of Rennes in France is using it to power a range of websites and at an academic level many universities make use of Osuny’s software, for example the Post Growth lab at the University of Vigo is powered by Osuny too.
Osuny describe it as being well suited for informational websites but there is a wide variety of organisations making use of it - you can see more of them in Osuny’s Showcase website.
The Tech Stack behind Osuny
For those who are curious as to the software used to run Osuny, it is based on Hugo, a popular open-source framework for building websites. On top of this, a Ruby on Rails application is used to power the CMS itself.
The Osuny interface - showing the summary/overview of an existing website
Osuny itself is server agnostic, meaning it doesn’t matter what kind of server is used (so it is quite flexible). Osuny makes use of a French web hosting provider called Deuxfleurs, which amazingly guarantees users a datacenter-free digital service.
Their setup is article-worthy in itself; they make use of fewer than a dozen refurbished old computers at the homes of team members that collectively acts as a hosting service, allowing tens of thousands of people to access these websites (they also have some backup machines, just in case!). Deuxfleurs host around 600 websites in total, with many of those coming from Osuny-powered sites.
They state some really insightful things about the carbon costs of manufacturing computers, for example “a computer would have to be used for 48 years for it to emit as much carbon through its electricity consumption in France as it required for its manufacture” and so they repurpose old machines to ensure they don’t end up in landfill, like many computers sadly do, often just after a few years of use.
On the energy used to power these sites - according to their team, in France the power mix is made principally of nuclear power which is not renewable (but also that does not emit carbon, except during extraction). But they believe that this actually isn’t as bad as the carbon and mineral costs involved in manufacturing servers in datacenters. There are also big issues with the metals and other materials used as well as problems with the mining and extraction of these materials. Many people are guilty of forgetting these such costs, when they see the words “Powered by Renewable Energy” in big green writing…
In that regard, they suggest that “to reduce carbon emission, we think fighting obsolescence is a better investment of our energy”. And they are actively working on some very cool possible alternatives to their use of nuclear energy, for example the use of small, local water mills as a way to shift away from the power grid. They also state that in France it’s not possible to be using 100% renewable energy, because you need non-renewable energy to stabilise the grid.
Deuxfleurs talk a lot about values on their own website, prioritising cooperation, autonomy, solidarity and freedom… this feels perfectly inline with the values of noesya, which all makes complete sense. And Deuxfleurs also probably have the cutest site on the web…
The Deuxfleur homepage complete with ASCII art...
Osuny allow you to use other web hosts if you prefer, for example if your organisation is based in the United States, and you will assume a high amount of US based traffic, you might benefit more from a web host physically located in the US (not France), so this is also a possibility - Netlify is one such host they can make use of.
Having this option is useful too from a sustainability point of view - it’s more efficient (less data heavy) to have computers in France sending data to thousands of website visitors in the US. It’s worth pointing out too that you could still make use of a CDN on top of a service like Osuny/Deuxfleurs. This can help to route traffic to the nearest host which can help improve data efficiency.
For those people who want to dive deeper into the tech setup or configuration of Osuny sites, there is a very comprehensive documentation available here.
How much does Osuny Cost?
This is arguably one of the most innovative or exciting things about Osuny - instead of charging people or organisations a set fee to make use of their website builder, they instead encourage users to contribute back to the Osuny project.
This means, you can do any of the following:
- Document any issues found on GitHub
- Contributing to their documentation and resources
- Helping with design work
- Helping with coding work
- Anything else that might contribute to the Osuny project.
For users that aren’t contributing they suggest a €100 per year payment towards Osuny, and they have defined prices for Non-profit associations (€500 per year), Public organisations (€1500 per year) and Private organisations (€3000 per year).
The fees are asked because, as you can imagine, noesya have salaries to pay, and other such costs involved in running their business.
Osuny are super transparent about this - you can even see donations and contributions listed here on their website.
From my various chats with Arnaud Levy, co-founder and backend developer at Osuny, he was keen to state that as an agency they do provide custom web development work for organisations out there (and can work with web designers too) - and that I shouldn’t solely emphasise that they provide websites on a reciprocal basis 🙂
I should also point out that Osuny won’t just accept anyone onto their platform - they are mindful about the types of organisations and people they allow to use their software. If you represent a brand that wants an online interface for your virtual gambling platform… Osuny wouldn’t be the right fit for you.
Is Osuny SEO friendly?
As an SEO consultant this was a big concern of mine - but having used it for several websites, I’m more than happy with the SEO performance.
There are some things which aren’t quite perfect when you use the default Osuny setup - for example, if you delete a page and add a redirect I don’t love that it is carried out as a Meta Refresh, so this is considered a client-side redirect (I would have preferred the option to add 301 or 302 redirects). Apparently htaccess management would be possible if you are using a different web host - something I learned after flagging the issue with Arnaud. So - this is only a minor issue for those who aren’t self-hosting.
Aside from this, from an SEO point of view Osuny is a more than capable platform - you can:
- Define custom Meta Title and Description tags
- Canonical tags are included by default (and these are self-referencing)
- Schema markup is included when necessary
- Site speed is fast and websites are responsive
- Websites score well on accessibility testing tools
- XML sitemaps are auto-generated and updated
- Robots.txt is automatically generated
Building blocks which are used to create simple websites on Osuny
Does Osuny support tracking codes, marketing tags and pixels?
Osuny has a partnership with Plausible analytics, so that if you enable this within your website you will have access to Plausible data which is considered a great, privacy focused and more ethical alternative to mainstream platforms like Google Analytics.
And if you want additional tracking codes or scripts, it should be possible to add them to the website, although Osuny’s CMS doesn’t really support or encourage these integrations by default.
From Osuny’s perspective this is to be preferred - that it shouldn’t be normal to add multiple tracking codes and pixels to websites, and would be more in keeping with their ethos of wanting to build a better web for all.
All that said - you can likely have specific tracking codes added by customising the build of your particular Osuny environment - which might require some assistance from the Osuny team.
What Makes Osuny a Sustainability-Focused Web Platform?
Lots of web platforms and CMS like to sell themselves on their sustainability features - sometimes implementing such features just as a tool to target a wider percentage of the market. In the case of Osuny it clearly feels like sustainability features have been built-in from the ground up, and so this wasn’t just some afterthought.
1 - Using the Webp Image Format and KeyCDN
Osuny makes use of more modern image optimisation such as adopting the WebP image format, plus making use of pictures and srctags. This helps to reduce the bandwidth on the site, cutting out unnecessary data.
When uploading an image within Osuny, they will automatically create the more web-friendly WebP version, as well as using KeyCDN, a Swiss Content Delivery Network (CDN) that delivers resized images from nearby servers.
There’s also a handy stock image integration whereby free stock images can be used within the CMS, whereby the images automatically get any necessary copyright attribution applied.
The import feature within Osuny, allowing you to easily import images from stock image sites Unsplash and Pixels
2 - Making use of Optimised Code
By reducing the amount of code used to build a website, the site will have optimised code and should be faster as a result.
Osuny use good development practises and have been able to obtain a score of 100% (although this depends on how you are using images on your site) across the 4 Google Lighthouse metrics, which are considered to have a small impact on SEO performance of websites.
3 - Precompiling Websites
As mentioned already, Osuny makes use of Hugo, a static site generator, which publishes created content to a Git repository. Meanwhile the backend of Osuny is actually a headless CMS.
All this creates an environment in which there is no intensive technology used on the server - not even MySQL or SQL Servers or databases are required. All that Osuny outputs is the HTML, CSS and JS required to run the website.
One thing that is worth noting is that when you do make changes or publish changes to a website, those changes aren’t reflected instantly in the browser. This is because there may be other user changes pending across different Osuny websites. So, this can take a bit of time adjusting too, although usually it just takes a few minutes to see changes reflected in the browser. Learning to become patient here and not expecting things to happen at the click of a button is probably a good thing 🙂
4 - Osuny Stays as Close to the User as Possible
Another important feature is that Osuny is a very open piece of software, and can be put online via any hosting setup. This means you could choose to use a host which is physically located where your audience lives, and if you are using a renewable-energy powered web host, these 2 factors combine to provide arguably the most “sustainable” web experience.
Location is important here because it avoids the need for data to travel long distances, thus requiring more power in the process.
Using software like Osuny, on a sustainable web host, located near your target audience (where possible) all helps to reduce the ecological footprint of your web presence.
5 - Osuny prioritises Accessibility
As the Hugo theme is in use by Osuny, full compliance is provided with RGAA (Référentiel Général d’Accessibilité pour les Administrations) which is a French law that web platforms need to comply with. The same should apply to WCAG (Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology) although Osuny have not yet had a proper WCAG audit carried out.
Osuny’s front office has been tested to be backward compatible with Windows Vista, 2007, as the aim is to ensure the software works on old devices as much as new ones.
Importantly, because Osuny sites are often very light when it comes to data usage, data transfer is kept to an absolute minimum, which is ideal for people who have weak internet connections.
This is critical if we want to ensure that websites remain accessible throughout the world, instead of just focusing on particular societies whereby high speed broadband is considered the norm.
In Summary - Osuny is a Brilliant Web Platform for Sustainability-Minded Organisations
I very much dislike the terms sustainability or sustainable because in my opinion their meanings have been lost, or perhaps better said they've been hijacked by corporate interests. To describe a web platform or service as being sustainable is probably a thought that is first hatched within the marketing departments of organisations, proposed as a method of reaching a wider share of the market whilst also helping with greenwashing or causewashing efforts.
So - when I describe Osuny as being a genuinely sustainable web platform - I hope Arnaud and team can forgive me. What they have built, under their tiny co-operative noesya, is a cause for celebration and is a sign that there are good people out there, trying to build alternatives to the world of corporations and BigTech.
Osuny is a very capable web platform for those people and organisations that care about the environmental impact of their digital activities, whilst also wanting to support these independent grassroots organisations that are trying to build a better internet for all.
If you are in need of a web platform and you are able to contribute to noesya/Osuny, I would urge you to explore them as a genuine option.
