Though we at Cory Webb Media are huge fans of Joomla (obviously), every once in a while we run across a project where Joomla is overkill for what the client needs.
We had one such example recently, so I went in search of a light-weight CMS that we could get up and running easily. I came across quite a few, including PyroCMS, Stacy, and Unify. However, I settled on a CMS called GetSimple, a sweet little PHP/XML-based CMS that did everything we needed, specifically things like
- Dead simple templating
- Custom fields (via the I18N Custom Fields plugin)
- A simple modular blocks system
- Built-in 'Undo' function on almost everything
- WYSIWYG editor for users (not my favorite, but it works)
- Easy file management
- Easy to extend with lots of plugins
One really attractive thing about GetSimple's PHP/XML setup is that there isn't a database involved. This means that version-controlling the whole site (files and data) is easy and you don't have to worry about setting up database dumps in your repositories. Despite this awesome, inherent quality, GitSimple has built-in backups and archiving. Creating and rolling back a backup is super easy via a GUI in the administration.
Getting GetSimple running was a piece of cake, and the end result is a fast, usable site that our client can use to make basic changes whenever they want. If you haven't checked out GetSimple, I encourage you to. The lead developers are doing a great job building on what they have so far and fostering a growing community. I don't think this will be the last time we'll use GetSimple, and hopefully we'll get a chance to contribute back to the project in the future!
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