The Story
It started with a single Docker container running MkDocs on a home server.
Individual Cloudflare tunnels exposed each service — one tunnel for the frontend, another for the backend.
Port management was manual. Container names like markdown-editor-frontend filled the terminal.
Over time, those containers multiplied. The Change Maker platform emerged — first as V3.8, bundling MkDocs with a custom editor and Listmonk. Then V3.9 brought NocoDB, Monica CRM, and a growing ecosystem. Organizations started using it. Pride Corner Edmonton got their own instance. That Really Blonde Human turned it into an art portfolio with trans flag theming.
Then came the rewrite. Changemaker Lite V2 rebuilt everything from the ground up — Express.js, React, PostgreSQL, Redis, Prisma ORM, Nginx reverse proxy. The flat stack of 35 containers became a proper application platform with JWT auth, campaign management, canvassing tools, and a media library.