§ Catalog

Platform features.

Sparrow CMS is built on Wagtail, providing a rich set of features for content management, editorial workflows, and multi-site deployment.

Activities and units

Activities grouped into units

Structure learning content as activities grouped into units and hierarchies. Each activity has a description, steps, skills and items.

Custom Page Types

Extend content models

Every content type is a Django model. Create blog posts, landing pages, case studies, or any custom structure by defining a Python class. Page types …

Form Builder

Surveys and contact forms

Editors create contact forms, surveys, and registration forms directly in the CMS. Add text, email, dropdown, checkbox, and file upload fields with validation. Submissions are …

Interactive content blocks

Scratch, quizzes, math, GeoGebra

Drop in Scratch blocks, quiz questions, math equations, number lines, grids, GeoGebra graphs — all as editable StreamField blocks.

Multilingual content

EN/CS/DE out of the box

Every snippet and page is translatable out of the box — manage EN/CS/DE/... with a shared translation_key per piece of content.

Navigation and footer builder

Navbar and footer as content

Site navbar and footer are content, not code. Compose from page chooser, document, or external-link blocks.

Page editor with reusable blocks

Block-based authoring, no code

Content authors compose pages from a library of reusable blocks — hero, cards, tables, embeds — without touching code.

Skills and badges

Design/Make/Other skill tracking

Tag activities and units with skills (Design / Make / Other buckets). Track which skills each learner has earned.

Snippets

Reusable components

Snippets are reusable content objects outside the page tree. Team members, testimonials, CTAs, navigation menus — anything that appears across multiple pages. They support StreamField …

StreamField

Flexible page building

StreamField is the heart of Wagtail's content editing. Editors compose pages from blocks — text, images, videos, embeds, cards — in any order. No rigid …

Accessibility

Checker, alt text, dark mode

Built-in checker scans for missing alt text, empty headings, low contrast, missing form labels before publishing. Customizable for org-specific checks. Alt text tools encourage best …

Commenting

Inline review and notifications

Comments attach to specific fields on a page. Reviewers highlight a paragraph and leave a note. Authors get email notifications, make edits, resolve comments — …

Enterprise Workflows

Review, history, and scheduling

Customizable workflows define who can draft, review, and publish. Multi-step approval chains with email notifications. Every edit creates a revision — comparison view shows exact …

Items inventory

Physical or digital item links

Link activities to physical or digital items (LEGO sets, software, services) so learners know what they need.

Open Source

Python, Django, and Wagtail

100% open source under BSD license. No premium tiers, no vendor lock-in. Built on Python and Django — massive ecosystem of packages, tools, and deployment …

Order management

Cart to payment to fulfilment

Track orders from cart through payment to fulfilment, with admin views for staff and self-service history for buyers.

Organizations and classes

Groups, templates, memberships

Group learners into organizations and classes with self-serve templates and membership workflows.

Pack pricing block

Tiered quantity-aware pricing widget

Quantity-aware pricing widget for tiered packages with live client-side recalculation.

Product catalog

Products, categories, and catalogs

Pages for products, categories and catalogs with inline pricing, gallery images, rich descriptions.

Progress tracking

Per-learner activity completion

Activity and unit completion per learner, with task-level progress bars on the activity page.

Promo codes

Percentage and flat-amount discounts

Percentage or flat-amount discounts, per-product or site-wide, with expiry and usage caps. Applied at add-to-cart time.

SSO + local authentication

OIDC, Zitadel, and local accounts

Authentik OIDC or Zitadel for staff login; local accounts for guests. SPARROW_ENV badge shows dev/test/prod at a glance.

Shopping cart

Session cart with line items

Session-backed cart with line items, discounts, cross-sell prompts and cart-level validation before checkout.

Subscriptions

Plans with automatic billing windows

Monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription plans with automatic billing windows — ships current_period_start/end fields for every order.

Content Organization

Intuitive admin panel

The admin is designed for content teams. Sidebar gives quick access to pages, images, documents, snippets. Page explorer shows tree structure with drag-and-drop. Search works …

Frontend Freedom

Any framework or headless

Use Django templates for server-rendered pages, or go headless with REST API or GraphQL to power React, Vue, Next.js. No generated markup to fight — …

Image Management

Focal points and cropping

Focal points let editors mark the important area of an image. When cropped for different ratios — thumbnails, hero banners, social cards — the focal …

Media library with image renditions

Upload once, render at any size

Upload once, render at any size. Collections let you group assets for galleries, downloads, or catalog thumbs.

Themes and presets

Bootswatch themes and site presets

Swap Bootswatch themes on a whim; spin up a new site from a preset (blog, company, restaurant, portfolio) in one click.

Wagtail AI

GPT, Claude, or open LLMs

Integrates LLMs directly into editing. OpenAI GPT, Anthropic Claude, or self-hosted Ollama — pick your model. AI assists with alt text, titles, summaries, translation, and …