The Best Flat-File CMS Options for Lightweight Sites

Most people still think “real” sites need a database. I learned the hard way that most small projects do not. They need fast file reads, simple configs, and something you can back up with a zip file, not a full LAMP stack and a prayer.

For lightweight sites, a flat-file CMS is often the better call: no database, fewer moving parts, faster cold starts, safer on cheap hosting, and easier to migrate. The short answer: Grav and Kirby are the strongest all‑round flat‑file CMS options right now, Statamic is excellent if you live in the Laravel world, Publii is great for people who want a GUI and static output, and Bludit or Pico work well for very simple setups. The “best” one depends on how much control you want, what your hosting supports (PHP vs Node vs static only), and whether non‑technical editors need a proper admin UI.

Flat-file CMS means content sits in the filesystem (Markdown, YAML, JSON, etc.), not in MySQL or PostgreSQL. If your site does not need heavy user interaction, you probably do not need a database at all.

What makes a good flat-file CMS for lightweight sites

Before comparing specific platforms, it helps to pin down what “good” looks like for this niche. For a lightweight site, you usually care about:

• Speed and low overhead
• Simple deployment and backups
• Easy templating for developers
• Reasonable editing experience for non‑tech users
• Long‑term maintainability

Here are the main factors I look at when I am picking a flat‑file system for a small project.

Core criteria

Most “lightweight” sites die not from traffic, but from neglect. You want a stack that tolerates being ignored for months and still boots up without errors.

Grav: feature-rich without a database

Grav is the heavyweight of the flat‑file CMS world, but “heavyweight” here still means no database, pretty simple deployment, and strong performance with caching enabled.

Why Grav stands out

• Mature ecosystem: Lots of plugins and themes, active community, frequent releases.
• Content as Markdown: Markdown files with front matter (YAML) for metadata and custom fields.
• Admin plugin: Optional but polished admin panel for editors.
• Flexible content types: You can model custom pages, modular blocks, taxonomies, and more.
• Caching: Multiple caching layers that keep page rendering fast.

Grav runs on PHP and works well on typical shared hosting, although it prefers a half‑decent PHP version and some memory headroom. If your host is stuck on ancient PHP, Grav will complain, and it is right to do so.

Strengths for lightweight sites

If you want “CMS comfort” without a database, Grav is usually the default starting point.

For small to mid‑sized sites:

• Setup is straightforward: Upload files, set permissions, visit the site, run through installer.
• Backups are trivial: Zip the directory, store it in Git, sync it somewhere. Content and config stay together.
• Editor UX is familiar: The admin plugin feels like a conventional CMS, not like a developer toy.
• Routing and taxonomies: Good enough for blogs, docs, micro‑sites with categories and tags.

Grav handles multilanguage, modular content blocks, and even simple forms. For a “lightweight but not trivial” marketing site or documentation site, that covers most needs.

Where Grav can be overkill

If you just need a dead‑simple brochure site with five pages, Grav can feel heavy:

• More files, more moving parts, more configuration than a minimalist flat‑file CMS.
• Admin plugin adds runtime overhead and more complexity to keep updated.
• Template system (Twig) is powerful, but not as simple as basic PHP includes.

In those cases, the cost is not performance alone; it is mental overhead. You are learning a full system for a site that will barely change.

Kirby: developer-friendly and editor-respectful

Kirby is a commercial flat‑file CMS with a one‑time license fee per site. That price tag tends to filter out hobby projects, but what you get is a polished, well‑designed system that respects both developers and editors.

Key characteristics

• Flat files everywhere: Content as text files with front matter, config as simple PHP arrays, templates in PHP.
• Panel (admin UI): Very well designed; editors usually like it without a long training session.
• Content blueprints: You define content types and fields with YAML blueprints, very flexible.
• PHP templates: No separate template language; you write regular PHP views.
• License model: Paid, with clear terms and active development.

If you are comfortable in PHP and you care about editor experience, Kirby is hard to beat in the flat‑file space.

Why it works well for lightweight sites

For small business sites, portfolios, documentation, and niche blogs:

• Simple deployment: copy files to the server, connect a domain, and you are done.
• Git‑based workflows are natural: developers can manage content and structure in version control.
• Custom fields feel first‑class: you are not fighting the system to make a “project” or “feature” content type.
• Editor UX is predictable: fields, sections, and page types follow a clear mental model.

Kirby does not chase every trend, but it keeps up where it matters. The author is active, the code quality is solid, and the documentation is clear.

Limitations to be aware of

• License cost: Not huge, but it rules out some personal or throwaway projects.
• PHP hosting needed: Not suitable for pure static hosts like Netlify without extra tooling.
• No big plugin marketplace: There are plugins, but the ecosystem is smaller than Grav or WordPress.

If your budget is non‑existent, or you insist on free and open source only, Kirby will not be your first choice. If your client can afford a license and you want less friction during build and editing, Kirby is worth it.

Statamic: flat-file on top of Laravel

Statamic sits in an odd but useful position: it runs on Laravel, but stores content in flat files (unless you switch to database mode). It is commercial, with a paid license for production use.

Who Statamic is for

Statamic fits best when:

• You or your team already use Laravel for other projects.
• You want flat‑file content with the option to move to database later.
• You want a modern, JavaScript‑heavy control panel for editors.

If your team already ships Laravel apps, Statamic gives you a CMS without adding another runtime or stack.

Strengths for lightweight sites

• Collections and taxonomies: Good for structured content like doc sets, portfolios, resource directories.
• Powerful templating: Antlers templates or Blade; nice for developers used to Laravel.
• Clear content structure: You define collections, blueprints, and relationships in code.
• Control panel: Editors get a clean admin UI with fields that reflect your models.

For a small, content‑heavy site that might grow or integrate with a custom app later, Statamic removes a future migration headache. You can start flat‑file, then flip to database backing if you outgrow flat files.

Drawbacks

• Laravel as a dependency: Great if you know it, extra complexity if you do not.
• Server resource use: Heavier than Grav or Kirby for equivalent pages, especially on weak shared hosting.
• Paid license: Similar situation as Kirby; fine for client work, less appealing for scrappy side projects.

If the site is tiny and will stay tiny, Statamic is probably unnecessary. You pay the Laravel overhead with little gain for a five‑page site.

Publii: desktop app that outputs static sites

Publii is a bit different from the rest. It is a desktop application (Windows, macOS, Linux) that manages content locally and generates a static site. There is no PHP or Node app running on the server, just HTML, CSS, and JS files.

How Publii works

• You install Publii on your machine.
• You create a site, theme, and content inside the app.
• Publii generates a static site and deploys it via FTP, SFTP, or to static hosting services.
• There is no runtime CMS on the server; editing happens only from the desktop app.

For non‑technical users who still want flat‑file simplicity and static hosting speed, Publii is a practical compromise.

Strengths for lightweight sites

• No server‑side runtime: Very cheap hosting, fast response times, less attack surface.
• GUI editor: Users who do not want to touch Markdown or Git get a visual interface.
• Built‑in deployment: One button deploys changes to the host, no extra CI/CD needed.
• Offline editing: You can write content without network access, then sync later.

For simple blogs, small marketing sites, and personal projects, Publii gives the benefits of a static site generator without asking the user to live in a terminal.

Where Publii falls short

• Single‑editor bias: There is no central admin, so multi‑user editing is awkward.
• Lock‑in to the app: Content is exportable, but the workflow depends on the desktop client.
• Less flexible than code‑first SSGs: Developers used to Hugo or Eleventy may find it limiting.

Publii works well when one person or one small team controls the site from one or two machines and wants the safety and speed of static output without a developer pipeline.

Bludit: simple, small, and PHP-based

Bludit is a lightweight flat‑file CMS written in PHP. It aims for simplicity rather than a huge feature set.

What Bludit offers

• Easy installation: Upload the files, set permissions, run the installer.
• Markdown or HTML content: Basic content entry with a simple admin panel.
• Plugins and themes: Modest ecosystem but enough for common tasks.
• Small footprint: Works on low‑resource shared hosting.

If you want something friendlier than hand‑editing Markdown but lighter than Grav, Bludit is a reasonable middle ground.

Pros for lightweight sites

• Very low complexity; easy for beginners.
• Suits small blogs and simple company sites with a handful of sections.
• Content and config are in flat files, so backups are simple.

Cons

• Less structured content modeling; custom fields are limited.
• Smaller community and plugin selection than Grav or other bigger names.
• Long‑term viability is harder to predict; you depend more on a small team.

For a basic content site where you want a web‑based admin and do not need deep structure, Bludit does the job without much fuss.

Pico CMS: ultra-minimal flat-file CMS

Pico is one of the more minimal flat‑file CMS options: no admin panel by default, just Markdown files and Twig templates.

How Pico works

• Pages are Markdown files in a content directory.
• YAML front matter defines basic metadata like title, description, and template.
• Twig handles templates, with a very small core API.
• Plugins can add features like editing, caching, or pagination.

Pico suits developers who prefer Git and a code editor to a web admin, and who want a very small runtime.

Advantages for lightweight sites

• Tiny codebase: Easier to audit, easier to host on cheap PHP plans.
• Git‑friendly: Everything is text; versioning content and templates is easy.
• Low surface area: Fewer features mean fewer things to secure and patch.

Where Pico feels limited

• No built‑in admin UI; non‑technical users will not enjoy editing raw files.
• Content types are primitive; custom fields require more manual work or plugins.
• Plugins are fewer and sometimes less maintained.

For developer‑maintained micro‑sites, documentation, or simple landing pages, Pico is very serviceable. For anything with regular non‑developer editing, it is not ideal without extra tooling.

Other notable flat-file options

There are more flat‑file CMS projects than any sane person needs. Most are small, opinionated, and often short‑lived. A few are still worth mentioning, at least to explain where they fit.

Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy and other static site generators

These are not CMS in the traditional sense; they are static site generators (SSGs). They use flat files for content and then generate final HTML. They become “CMS‑like” when paired with a headless editor or Git‑based editing workflow.

• Jekyll: Ruby‑based, integrated with GitHub Pages. Fine for tech‑savvy users comfortable with Git.
• Hugo: Go‑based, extremely fast builds, powerful content modeling. Needs some ramp‑up time.
• Eleventy: Node‑based, very flexible, no rigid structure, good for custom setups.

SSGs are flat‑file at heart, but they are better described as build tools than as CMS. Editors often need an extra UI layer.

These can power excellent lightweight sites if you either:

• Own the whole stack as a developer and do not need non‑technical editors, or
• Attach a headless editor like Netlify CMS or CloudCannon to hide Git from content authors.

If you are willing to invest some setup time, this can be the fastest and most stable option, with very cheap hosting.

Automad

Automad is another PHP‑based, flat‑file CMS with a focus on simple templating and modular content.

• File‑based content and configuration.
• Admin panel out of the box.
• Modular templates for building page layouts.

It is less popular than Grav or Kirby, but some developers like its balance of simplicity and features. Longevity is the question; the project is active, but the ecosystem is smaller.

Choosing the right flat-file CMS for your use case

The right choice depends on your constraints: who edits the content, what hosting you have, and how long the project is supposed to live.

Match by editor type

Pick the tool that matches the least technical person who must touch the site regularly, not the most technical.

Match by hosting environment

• Cheap shared PHP hosting:
  • Good: Grav, Kirby, Bludit, Pico, Automad.
  • Statamic is workable if the host is not too constrained.
• Static‑only hosts (Netlify, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages):
  • Good: Publii, Jekyll, Hugo, Eleventy, other SSGs.
  • PHP-based CMS will not run there directly.
• Managed Laravel or VPS with Composer:
  • Good: Statamic, Grav, Kirby, SSGs behind CI/CD.

If your host is inflexible, that may decide the issue for you before features do.

Match by project complexity

Why flat-file CMS beats databases for many small sites

Years of babysitting MySQL on small servers make this point very clear. Database‑backed CMS have their place, but for small projects they introduce a lot of fragility.

Simplicity of deployment and backups

With a flat‑file CMS:

• Deployments are file copies, rsync, or Git pulls.
• Backups are a single archive of the project directory.
• Migrations are moving a folder from one host to another, maybe with minor config edits.

You are not dealing with:

• Dumping and importing SQL with the correct character encoding.
• Handling separate credentials and network access to the database.
• Different database engines or versions between hosts.

For small sites, the operational overhead of a database is often the real bottleneck, not CPU time.

Performance and resource use

Databases add overhead: connections, caching layers, query tuning. For high‑traffic apps, this is worth it. For a site that gets a few hundred visits per day, it is mostly wasted complexity.

Flat‑file systems can still be slow if badly written, but generally:

• Cold starts read a handful of files and build a small in‑memory representation.
• Caching reduces repeated parsing of Markdown and templates.
• The OS file cache does a lot of work behind the scenes.

On limited shared hosting, this predictability helps. There are fewer things that can quietly go wrong at 3 a.m.

Security and attack surface

Databases introduce a whole class of vulnerabilities:

• SQL injection issues.
• Database credential leaks and misconfigurations.
• Exposed management interfaces.

A flat‑file CMS is not automatically safe, and you still have to care about:

• PHP or Node vulnerabilities.
• Admin authentication hardening.
• File permission hygiene.

But you have fewer services to lock down, monitor, and patch. For very small, low‑budget projects, that matters.

Practical setup patterns for flat-file CMS

Knowing what to pick is one thing; running it sensibly is another. Here are a few patterns that hold up well over time.

Git-first workflow when possible

If the people editing content can handle Git, or if only developers touch the files:

• Keep the whole project (config, content, templates) in a repository.
• Deploy via Git push or a CI script to the server.
• Tag releases so you can roll back quickly.

This works especially well with Kirby, Grav without admin, Pico, and SSG setups. It reduces drift between environments and makes experimental changes easy to revert.

Admin-first workflow when editors are non-technical

If you must expose a web admin:

• Restrict access by IP or VPN if possible.
• Use strong passwords and 2FA where supported.
• Schedule regular file backups to offsite storage.
• Patch the CMS when updates come out; flat‑file does not mean you can ignore updates.

Grav, Kirby, Statamic, and Bludit cater to this model. The convenience is worth the extra work if the alternative is emailing Markdown attachments back and forth.

Static export where possible

Even if you start with a PHP flat‑file CMS, it can be useful to:

• Generate static exports for high‑traffic landing pages.
• Put a CDN like Cloudflare in front to cache HTML for anonymous users.
• Use the CMS mainly for content management, not for dynamic rendering on every request.

Some tools have dedicated static export plugins; in other cases you can automate with wget or a crawler. This gives you a hybrid setup: editor comfort with static stability.

When a flat-file CMS is the wrong choice

The trend lately is to run away from databases for everything. That is not always smart. There are cases where a flat‑file CMS is the wrong tool.

High write frequency and user-generated content

If your project involves:

• Many users posting content daily.
• Comments, forums, or community spaces.
• Transactional data such as orders or bookings.

Flat files quickly become a bottleneck:

• File locking issues arise under concurrent writes.
• Directory listing and search slows with huge content sets.
• Backup sizes and diff noise increase rapidly.

For those, a proper database and a framework or CMS made for that load is more suitable.

Complex querying and reporting

If you need:

• Ad‑hoc queries across large content sets.
• Complicated filters, joins, or analytics across content fields.
• Live dashboards based on content state.

Flat‑file search over Markdown and YAML will not age well. Static builds and search indices like Algolia can help, but there is a point where a relational or document database is simply the right tool.

Regulated environments and strict audit trails

Some industries need:

• Detailed auditing of content changes.
• Strict role separation and workflows.
• Granular permissions across many users and teams.

While some flat‑file CMS can fake parts of this, you will fight the grain of the tools. A more conventional CMS with workflow features, or a custom application, is safer.

Summary reference table: top flat-file CMS options

For most lightweight sites where you want a traditional CMS feel, start by testing Grav and Kirby. If your team is Laravel-heavy, test Statamic. If you prefer static output and a GUI, look at Publii.