A New Generation of Content Management Systems That Don't Use MySQL
Simplify, Simplify - H. D. Throreu
There's a perception that even WordPress is too complex. Platforms like
Ghost promise to be "just a blog." With that as a background, here's some modern flat-file CMSs. I also tried to get some feel of the ecosystem surrounding each by seeing if they had a means of displaying an RSS feed on the site.
Typesetter
http://www.typesettercms.com/
First impressions: kept telling me I was logged out, fairly frustrating.
Seems to have about 100 plugins, but no RSS feed display.
Most of the other sites have separate public facing and administrator-facing sides like Joomla or WordPress. Typesetter just adds a toolbar to the public side for the administrator. This is much like Drupal's interface.
pagekit
https://www.sitepoint.com/first-look-at-pagekit-cms-clean-extensible-fast-but/
https://pagekit.com/
or download at github: https://github.com/pagekit/pagekit
from the YooTheme people who do Joomla Themes.
demo at: https://www.openfacesystems.com/flatfilecms/pagekit/
Kind of a cheat to call this a "flat-file" CMS since it can use MySQL, but defaults to SQLLite
Built with Vue.js / Symfony
The install is minimalist and beautiful, but I'm rather unsure about the page layout model they use.
About 20 plugins, still no RSS feed.
Grav
by rockettheme
who also do Joomla/Wordpress/Magento themes.
demo at: https://www.openfacesystems.com/flatfilecms/grav/
Beautiful admin area, uses markdown
Claims 114 plugins, including RSS display!
Probably the best experience I had of any of these.
pulse
https://www.pulsecms.com/ note: not open-source, pricing starts at $39 so I didn't invest the money to do a demo of it.
Looks like about 24 plugins, no RSS feed.
October
http://octobercms.com/blog/post/october-stable-release
uses Laravel
demo site: https://www.openfacesystems.com/flatfilecms/octobercms/
page editing defaults to HTML. Not for the faint of heart. The blog section uses Markdown.
The add-on menu plugin blew up on install, not good experience.
Very much for developers, nothing I'd put in the hands of a client.
It claims to have 288 plugins, does have an RSSFetcher plugin.
This, too, can use databases, or SQLLite.
Kirby
https://getkirby.com/
Not open source, but flat-file
$17 for starter license. Again, I didn't spring for it.
ElefantCMS
https://www.elefantcms.com/
can use SQLLite, MySQL or PostgreSQL
It won't run in a subdirectory, has to run in the webroot, so couldn't install it.
Conclusion
SQLLite is the new MySQL since people are unsure about the direction MySQL is taking.