January 2021 Summaries

Sanity, a platform known for its content management capabilities, recently celebrated surpassing 10,000 members in its community Slack, marking a significant milestone. The platform is being utilized in various projects, from personal portfolios to tech conference websites, showcasing its versatility. Notable projects include a personal website by Ryan Sheehan that highlights the effective combination of Sanity with Next.js, and NDC {London} tech conference websites, which benefit from Sanity's centralized content hub and customizable frontends. Additionally, a new community-created tool, "Next.js Sanity Image" by Lorenzo de Jong, enhances image handling in Sanity by using the Next.js image component, offering advantages such as responsive image support and seamless integration with Sanity's CDN. The community is encouraged to share their creations, with opportunities for features in the Sanity Community Digest, fostering a collaborative and innovative environment.

Throughout 2020, the Sanity developer community experienced significant growth, fostering an inclusive environment for developers of all backgrounds to collaborate and share their projects. The community, which reached 5,600 members by the end of the year, actively engaged in discussions on platforms like Slack, contributing plugins, tools, and feedback that enhanced Sanity's capabilities. Notable projects included integrations with frameworks like Gatsby, GROQ, and Next.js, as well as unique applications such as Sonos Radio HD and Nick Offerman's fan site. Sanity introduced new features on its website to showcase user contributions, encouraging developers to create and share "starters" for various frameworks. This collaborative spirit was further supported by community members like Kevin McAloon and Kevin Green, who developed innovative plugins and e-commerce starters, respectively. The year concluded with an invitation for developers to join the Slack community, share their own projects, and engage with the expanded Community Studio, which aimed to better highlight the creative outputs of its members.

As the Community Digest welcomes 2021, it highlights several innovative projects that showcase community creativity and collaboration. Among them is a comprehensive database for LGBTQ2S+ mental health resources in British Columbia, developed using Sanity, Gatsby, and Netlify, which provides a crucial tool for mental health support, as detailed by Eric Howey on Twitter. Jérôme Pott demonstrates using GitHub Actions to automate and monitor backups for Sanity projects, offering reassurance through notifications upon successful or failed workflows. Simeon Griggs enhances the recipe experience by utilizing Portable Text to include unit conversions directly in the CMS, thus optimizing readability and efficiency without extra loading time, as he elaborates in a blog post and accompanying YouTube video. These projects, built with platforms like Next.js, Sanity, and Vercel, reflect the community's resourcefulness and the vibrant exchange of ideas within the Sanity Slack Community.

In 2020, despite the global challenges posed by COVID-19 and heightened awareness around social issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, Sanity.io experienced significant growth, tripling its community and customer base and securing partnerships with major brands such as Sonos, Netlify, and Unilever. The company focused on enhancing its platform around three core themes: collaboration, customization, and treating content as data. This included the launch of features like Review Changes for real-time collaboration, Sanity UI for an improved developer experience, and Advanced Dataset Management for efficient content distribution. Sanity.io successfully raised a Series A funding round led by Threshold Ventures, expanded its team to over 40 members, and made strides in diversity and inclusion, increasing its diverse workforce from 18% to 33%. Looking forward to 2021, the company plans to further develop its platform to enhance content interoperability, team collaboration, and workflow customization, continuing to drive content velocity for its users.