Testing some simple cms systems

I've been a fan of the flat file cms - simple, file base websites, not requiring a database. It's a nice way to, as I say, 'Throwup a website'.

In the past I have used getsimple, cmsimple, nibbleblog, pluck cms, and several others. 

In addition to the low requirements and ease of these, is that with the exception of getsimple, they are available in softtaculous, which makes them even easier.

I had settled on Pluck CMS for quite a while. I liked the simplicity of installation, editing, and working with themes and plugins. In it's prime, I think it also had an way of installing updates. However, the developer moved on to other things, and after I time, I moved it to GitHub to at least keep it up.

As I dig through the code, some of the things that I would like to do with it may be beyond what I want to do.

So I have looked back through the flat file cms's and chose a few I am going to test.

Pluck CMS and CMSimple, two I have used in the past, and PluXML and Bludit, relative newcomers. I chose them based on having plugins, and themes available. The ones I have chose all have the ability to be used in other languages.

Since Softaculous is available for me, I used that installer. They provides for these and scores of others on their website https://www.softaculous.com/software/

Themes and Plugins

Pluck is older, and yet when the versions were updated, many themes where not updated, and so it is generally up to the user to do any theme modification. Plugins and themes are simple to create, but not many are available. Since there are no thumbnails, and no modern themes, starting is difficult. I picked the miniport theme from the release github site (you have to know what to download). I had a thumbnail that wasn't immediatly visible. There is a theme uploader, and applying is easy.

CMSimple has a plugins and modules, that appear to be provided by a web design shop in Denmark. The themes available are modern and responsive. Blog functionality appears to be a plug in. Couldn't find an uploader for themes.

PluXml has lots of themes displayed, with thumbnails. They appear to have several plugins. Documentation is mostly in French. Going to install, I find there is no upload/install for themes or plugins. Bummer and show stopper.

Bludit has a page of plugins, and a page of themes. Sadly they are without thumbnails or demo versions on the site. Looks like themes can be simple or complex by your choice. Sadly too, I find no uploader.

So I guess for now I stick with Pluck.