Flatpress is a databaseless PHP flat file blogging platform. It does not use a database like MySQL, but uses text files to store the data of the blog.
I started out with Flatpress, then I went to wordpress, returned back to flatpress, then again to wordpress. Now I am currently using wordpress.
You might think that I have a love – hate relationship, but I have nothing against it. So this will be my personal views about this text based blogging script.
Flatpress – Advantages
1. Its very easy to setup. Perhaps one of the easiest.
2. Interface is very good – its very easy to use too.
3. The community is very good. You will get lots of support in the forum.
4. Backing up and moving from one server to another is very easy – you just backup all the files and folders using FTP.
Flatpress – Disadvantages
1. Very limited range of plugins and themes – when you compare with wordpress, you will find that flatpress has very few plugins and themes. But you will find the most basic plugins that are required. I love the default theme and you might like some of the other themes made by users.
2. Only one user – the script does not support multiple authors or admins like wordpress. It can have only one user. So its limited to single user blogs and cannot be used for news sites where there may be multiple authors.
3. Upgrading isn’t a one step click like wordpress, you have to manually replace the script files via ftp with newer version.
4. inode limit by your hosting provider could creep up – since the script uses text files for storing data, you will find that as your blog grows there will be loads of text files.
I am not exactly sure how the speed of the script is. When I was using flatpress, though the site load times when tested by online tools showed bad readings, people who visited my site was telling me that it seems to load faster compared to wordpress.
There was a change in the main coder some time back. Edoardo who had stared the project, gave it to Arvid – who currently maintains the project.
I simply moved to wordpress since it had lots of features, plugins and themes. I had to use some plugins for which there was no alternative. But flatpress is a very alluring platform for beginners who has very little idea about database management, its an ideal stepping stone for the first time bloggers who wants to install their own script and maintain it.