# What's your flat file blog of choice?



## raindog308 (Oct 31, 2014)

Thinking about starting a new blog and thought I might do something other than Wordpress just for giggles.

Not interested in Ghost.  Well, not real interested anyway...want something I can throw on a shared host and not have to spin up a node.js instance and manage it.

I looked at some flat file projects.  Ideally blog-oriented though most CMS systems can be made into blogs.  But I don't want to spend a lot of time fiddling with CCS, etc.

Kirby looks nice, though not free.  But not expensive.

Someone over on LET mentioned Anchor CMS but it is prominently marked as "not ready for production".

There seems to be a galaxy of small projects in this space...what do you like and why?


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## souen (Oct 31, 2014)

Do you like Markdown? I know you said you don't want to spend much time with CSS, but if you want something light to get up and running quickly, take a look at Pico. It doesn't have lots of themes like Wordpress, but makes up for it by making it easy to create your own (plain HTML/CSS, insert Twig content placeholders). It turns Markdown files to nice HTML pages. Normally it acts like regular Wordpress pages but you can also use it like a blog by giving each page a date and making a small adjustment on the template.

Also check https://staticsitegenerators.net/ (you can sort by language, e.g. if you want something PHP-based).


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## raj (Oct 31, 2014)

I always liked getsimple.


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## vRozenSch00n (Oct 31, 2014)

I am a FreeGuppY fan and used it from way back when they were called MiniPortail, a text based CMS.

The only reason to use it is simply because at that time many free hosting only offer PHP without MySql


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## yomero (Oct 31, 2014)

I've heard about Nibbleblog. What about that one?


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## raindog308 (Oct 31, 2014)

souen said:


> Do you like Markdown? I know you said you don't want to spend much time with CSS, but if you want something light to get up and running quickly, take a look at Pico. It doesn't have lots of themes like Wordpress, but makes up for it by making it easy to create your own (plain HTML/CSS, insert Twig content placeholders). It turns Markdown files to nice HTML pages. Normally it acts like regular Wordpress pages but you can also use it like a blog by giving each page a date and making a small adjustment on the template.
> 
> Also check https://staticsitegenerators.net/ (you can sort by language, e.g. if you want something PHP-based).



I don't want to think about what language - it could run in algol 60 for all I care.

I guess I should have been slightly clearer.  What I'd like is:

- well maintained, not some project for 2 years ago the author dropped

- runs on typical shared hosting

- nice if it has some community around it so there are themes and such

- I'll probably plug disqus into it, but I think that is just a copy/paste code snippet


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## RosenHost (Nov 1, 2014)

I am currently actively running a GetSimple CMS. It is useful for a CMS but not for a regularly updated blog imho.

http://get-simple.info/

It has some themes, modules, language packs etc.


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## sv01 (Nov 1, 2014)

raindog308 said:


> I don't want to think about what language - it could run in algol 60 for all I care.
> 
> I guess I should have been slightly clearer.  What I'd like is:
> 
> ...


give pelican try.

1. yes

2. sure because it only html/css and js

3. https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-themes and plugin's https://github.com/getpelican/pelican-plugins

4. some themes already has disqus build in, but that just as simple as copy paste code.


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## Ree (Nov 4, 2014)

RosenHost said:


> I am currently actively running a GetSimple CMS. It is useful for a CMS but not for a regularly updated blog imho.
> 
> http://get-simple.info/
> 
> It has some themes, modules, language packs etc.


The news manager plugin functions fairly well as a blog.  At least for my usage, which admittedly isn't "regularly updated".


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## AuroraZero (Nov 4, 2014)

You could give FlatPress a try. http://flatpress.org/home/

I tried it awhile ago and it was not to bad. Works a bit like WordPress and you are supposed to be able to port the themes pretty easily I guess. I never went that far with it. Everything is text files so loading should be quick though.


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## gxbfxvar (Nov 4, 2014)

Another vote for Pelican from here. I use it for several blogs (some with disqus comments, some without comments). The theming options are good and it is quite easy to create custom themes.

The content is written either in Markdown or reStructuredText and can be easily kept in version control. Deploying the blog is also very easy (rsync -a output/ my-shared-web-hostublic_html/).


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## TierNet (Nov 5, 2014)

I have tried b2evolution before, and it is very intuitive, give it a try!


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## raindog308 (Nov 5, 2014)

You know what's funny about these flat file blogs - kirby, b2evolution, anchor, etc. - is that all the screen shots are taken on Macs.  I guess no one who uses Windows or Linux flat file blogs


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## wlanboy (Nov 5, 2014)

I am stil on the HTML generator side, but one of my sites is getting too large for that.

Generating new categories, or moving sites always takes a lot of time because all files have to be generated again.

So I am looking forward to CMS systems that use static content and some meta data files to create the dynamic part of the website.

Don't know which approach does have the most advantages.


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## DomainBop (Nov 5, 2014)

> I don't want to think about what language - it could run in algol 60 for all I care.


What about Fortran? http://sourceforge.net/projects/fortranblog/


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## Leyton (Nov 5, 2014)

I'm a big fan of Jekyll, which makes for a simple flat-file blog and CMS platform.


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## drov (Jan 9, 2015)

Jekyll + github pages. Free and free hosted. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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