Some benefits of working with a flat-file content management system are: But if you’re managing a professional website, it could be a good fit. If you’re running extensive niche blogs with hundreds or thousands of posts, it might not be the best system. That depends on the kind of website(s) you want to run. Why, and when, might you want to use a flat-file CMS? Is there any benefit to you as a freelance writer? Benefits of Flat-File Content Management Systems If you want to change a post, you update it on the server or update a local copy and re-upload the changed content.Ī flat-file CMS gives you something more akin to that static HTML website, but with the convenience of a content management system so you don’t have to code everything or work heavily within the server’s file system. When visitors load a non-cached page, multiple database queries will pull in the content (your header, your footer, your post content, your comments, etc.) to create the resulting page the visitor sees.Ī static website would be more like a hand-coded HTML site where you upload your CSS (stylesheets) and HTML pages into a folder structure on your server. WordPress is an example of a CMS, but it doesn’t create static websites. Content Management Systems (CMS) - A CMS is an interface that allows you to manage your website without having to write code directly.Static Websites - A static website is one that doesn’t rely on a database to pull content together when someone loads a page.What is a Flat-File CMS?īefore we get into what a flat-file content management system is, you need to understand two other terms. If you aren’t familiar with them yet, let’s look at what a flat-file CMS is, what some of the pros and cons are, and why you might opt to move in this direction. More specifically, I noted that my plan over the next couple of years is to move my smaller sites off WordPress and onto a flat-file CMS. I mentioned flat-file content management systems in my recent post on revenue sharing schemes over at All Freelance Writing. But you have another option you might not have heard of yet - the flat-file CMS.

If you have a professional freelance writer website, you likely used a content management system - or CMS - to build it.

What is a flat file