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The Self-Hosted Content Engine: From Pillar to Posts on Autopilot

As a solo consultant, your 'pillar' content like webinars and articles is your goldmine. But manually transcribing, extracting takeaways, creating unique posts, designing graphics, and scheduling them all is a massive time sink. This tedious process cannibalizes your billable hours and business development time, resulting in an inconsistent brand presence and significant opportunity cost.

This playbook details the 'Self-Hosted Open Source Stack,' a powerful, cost-effective solution to automate your entire content repurposing workflow. By leveraging a self-hosted toolchain, you'll use Baserow as a central content hub that automatically triggers graphic creation in Penpot and schedules everything via Mixpost. This approach eliminates recurring software fees, gives you 100% control over your data, and builds a scalable content machine that works for you.

Expected Outcomes

  • Reclaim dozens of non-billable hours every month by eliminating manual content fragmentation.
  • Drastically reduce your monthly marketing tool spend by replacing expensive SaaS subscriptions with a self-hosted stack.
  • Maintain a consistent, high-quality brand presence across all social media channels, effortlessly.
  • Gain complete ownership and control over your content data and marketing workflows, free from platform limitations.
  • Build a scalable content repurposing engine that fuels business growth while you focus on client work.

Core Tools in This Stack

Baserow

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Baserow is an open-source, no-code database platform that provides the flexibility of a database with the familiarity of a spreadsheet. It allows users to create custom databases, automate workflows, and collaborate in real-time, with options for both cloud-hosted and self-hosted deployment.

Key Features
  • Open-source & Self-hostable
  • Familiar Spreadsheet Interface
  • Multiple Data Views (Grid, Kanban, Calendar, Form, Gallery)
  • Real-time Collaboration
  • REST API for every table
  • Workflow Automation
  • Role-Based Access Control
  • Extensive Template Library
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Low Cost

Ease of Use

Easy to use

Penpot

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Penpot is the open-source, web-based design and prototyping platform for cross-domain teams. It empowers designers and developers to work collaboratively in real-time using open standards like SVG.

Key Features
  • Real-time multiplayer collaboration
  • Interactive prototyping and presentations
  • Reusable components and libraries
  • Vector editing tools
  • Flex Layout and CSS Grids for responsive design
  • Developer-ready code inspection
  • Open Source and self-hostable
  • Extensible through a plugin system
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Creative & Media, Business & Professional Services, Education & Non-Profit, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, Enterprise

Tier: Free

Ease of Use

Medium

Mixpost

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Mixpost is a self-hosted, open-source social media management platform that allows users to schedule posts, manage multiple social accounts, and analyze performance across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.

Key Features
  • Self-hosted & Open Source Option
  • Multi-Account Management
  • Advanced Post Scheduling & Queues
  • Visual Content Calendar
  • Post Analytics & Performance Tracking
  • Team Collaboration & Workspaces
  • White-label Solution for Agencies
  • Hashtag & Template Management
  • API Access for Integrations
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Other

Pricing

Model: Free, One-time Purchase, Subscription

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Moderate

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "Self-Hosted Open Source Stack" direction LR N0["Baserow"] N1["Penpot"] N2["Mixpost"] N0 -- "Triggers design task" --> N1 N1 -- "Adds completed graphic" --> N0 N0 -- "Sends content for scheduling" --> N2 N2 -- "Updates status with post link" --> N0 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • n8n Content Pipeline

    This workflow automates the social media content pipeline. It begins when a content idea's status is updated in a Baserow database. This triggers an n8n workflow, which can notify a designer to create a graphic using a Penpot template. Once the design is complete and added back to the Baserow row, a second trigger or a 'wait' condition in n8n activates. The workflow then pulls the final copy and the graphic URL from Baserow and uses the Mixpost API to create and schedule a new social media post. As a final step, the n8n workflow updates the Baserow row with a link to the scheduled post and sets its status to 'Published' or 'Scheduled'.

Put Your Content on Autopilot

Turn one pillar asset into an entire campaign and reclaim your billable hours.