Your Zo comes with a built-in way to create sites hosted on your Zo server. Select Create site, and Zo will create a new website template for you in a new folder with the lightning icon . When you select the site’s folder, you’ll see a preview of the site.

A Zo site, displaying data from a database in spotify-db

Because your site is hosted on your personal server along with your other files, you can easily incorporate files from your workspace into your site. This means you can do things like:
  • Save responses from a form to a database in your workspace.
  • Integrate any file or folder from your workspace into your site.
All you have to do is mention the files or folders you want to incorporate as you chat with Zo. You will get a URL to access your site that looks like this: sitename-yourhandle.zocomputer.io
Zo sites are private by default. Only you can access the URL when you’re logged in to your Zo Computer account. To make your site public, click “Publish”.
You can think of a private Zo site as an app just for you. You can ask Zo to create any interface you want for your computer. You can create as many private Zo sites as you want. When you publish a site, this creates a public service running on your Zo.

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Learn to fish

You don’t have to know how to code to create websites, because Zo can write the code for you. But knowing a bit about what’s going on behind the scenes can help you have more productive conversations with Zo.
The built-in site tool is our recommended way to create websites on your Zo. But of course, you can use services to run anything on your Zo, using any technology you want.
Websites have two sides, the backend and the frontend.
  • The backend, also called the server, is the part of your site that runs on your server.
  • The frontend, also called the client, is the part of your site that runs in the browser.
    • Your backend delivers your site’s frontend code to the user’s browser, and the browser runs your frontend.
Zo creates a simple but powerful website template for you using Hono, a popular minimal web application framework.

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What if I want a database?

If you ask Zo to create a database for your site, it will use SQLite by default. SQLite is a good default choice for your database because it’s performant and lightweight – your database is just a file.
SQLite is our recommended choice for your site’s database. But of course, you can use services to run any database you want on your Zo server.You can also ask Zo to point your site to an externally hosted database service, such as Convex or Supabase.

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External building blocks

There is a huge amount of high-quality open-source software packages that developers have built over the last two decades. As you build your site, you may see Zo installing new open-source software packages to extend the functionality of your site.
A package is a bundle of code published on the internet that can be installed into your own code project. There are also many complete open-source software applications, which you can ask Zo to help you install and set up to run on your Zo server.
Sometimes, you’ll want to extend your site’s functionality using external software services.
There’s a whole universe of software out there, and with Zo’s help, you can explore and leverage any of it to do practically anything on your Zo Computer. The only limit is your imagination – and your determination.
When you integrate a new external API, your site’s backend is responsible for connecting to the API. You may need to provide the necessary credentials to Zo to access the API. Zo should be able to walk you through the process.