While the vast majority of existing open source web publishing systems¹⁾ rely on database back-ends, there are quite a few high-quality applications that use plain text files instead of databases to store and manage data. These applications are often called flat-file systems, and they offer a few advantages that make them viable alternatives to the database-driven applications.

For starters, you don’t have to fiddle with MySQL or other database systems during installation, which makes the entire setup process significantly easier. Without a database back-end, there is no need to worry about optimizing database performance, and figuring out how to back up your data. Finally, flat-file systems are usually easier to upgrade than their database-based counterparts. The major drawback of flat-file systems is that they don’t scale particularly well. Simply put, there is a limit to how many users and pages a flat-file system can manage without a decrease in performance.

If you decide to go with a flat-file blog or wiki, the next question is which particular application to choose. Obviously, there is no simple answer to this question, but here is a list of the best flat-file wiki, blog, and content management systems you might want to take for a spin.

While there are many contenders for the title of simplest wiki or easiest to use, Pawfaliki beats them all for two reasons: the entire wiki consists of just one PHP file, and it can be configured by anyone with little or no experience with PHP. This makes Pawfaliki a perfect tool for users who want to set up a personal wiki with minimum fuss, or small workgroups looking for a quick and easy way to share knowledge and collaborate. All Pawfaliki’s configuration settings are stored in the pwfaliki.php file, and they are all thoroughly commented. For example, you can specify users and their passwords in the USERS section as follows:

$config['USERS']['admin'] = "password";

In a similar manner, you can restrict access to specific wiki pages:

$config['RESTRICTED']['HomePage'] = array("admin");

The appearance of Pawfaliki is controlled by the pawfaliki.css file, and you can change virtually every aspect of your wiki by tweaking the CSS attributes.

As the name suggests, DokuWiki is a wiki designed to manage documentation. Behind its deceptively simple interface hides a powerful wiki engine that supports some advanced features, including access control lists, powerful search capabilities, easy-to-use markup, page revisions with colored side-by-side diff, and many more (see DokuWiki features). DokuWiki also supports plugins, so you can expand its functionality even further. Using plugins, you can transform DokuWiki into a blog, a calendaring system, and even a database. In case you didn’t notice, this website is powered by DokuWiki.

http://www.pmwiki.org/PmWiki is a solid system that offers all the features you’d expect from a decent wiki. Since PmWiki supports skins (a.k.a themes), you can easily customize its appearance by using one of the available skins or creating your own. PmWiki’s access control capabilities allow you to limit access to individual pages as well as groups of pages. Similar to other wiki systems, PmWiki supports plugins called recipes, and the PmWiki Cookbook provides a wide selection of such recipes that can help you to spice up your PmWiki installation.

Despite its name, http://tiddlywiki.com/TiddlyWiki is not a conventional wiki. The entire application consists of just one HTML file, which includes CSS and JavaScript codes, and everything you enter in the wiki is stored inside this file as well. TiddlyWiki also does away with separate pages, and instead it uses so-called tiddlers. Each tiddler is a text fragment that is stored in the wiki file, and you can show and hide it. You can also add new tiddlers, delete and modify existing ones, and shuffle them as you see it fit. This makes TiddlyWiki a rather useful tool for managing your text fragments (or using a more fashionable word—microcontent) in a non-linear manner.

Wikepage is a hybrid system that combines blog and wiki features. Basically, it allows you to create both blog entries (which are wiki pages with the prefix Blog_Entry) that can be embedded into any wiki page using the <blog_view> tag. Similar to a wiki, Wikepage uses a wiki-like markup for text formatting, it tracks changes made to each page, and provides searching capabilities as well as an RSS feed. Similar to a blog, Wikepage maintains an archive of previous posts. The application is extremely easy to install (all you have to do is to edit site info in the index.php file), but it requires the save_mode turned off. The latter can be a problem if your web server provider has this feature turned on and it doesn’t allow you to switch it off.

Don’t let the “simple” part in the SimplePHPBlog‘s name fool you – it is a very capable blogging platform that offers all the features to satisfy even the most demanding bloggers. User management, support for themes, RSS feeds, moderation and anti-spam features, statistics – it’s all there. And using SimplePHPBlog’s installation wizard, you can set up a blog in a matter of minutes. Besides blog entries, you can also create static pages that appear in the Links section as well as add new sections by creating so-called blocks. You can even tweak the color scheme of the active theme. In other words, you can customize pretty much every aspect of SimplePHPBlog.

GuppY is an “everything but the kitchen sink” type of publishing system suitable for creating and managing online communities. As such, it comes with pretty much everything you need, including blog, download area, link directory, forums, photos gallery, FAQ, and guestbook modules. It even comes with a mobile version, so you can use GuppY on your mobile device. If you want to try GuppY without spending time on installing and configuring the software, you might want to try miniGuppY, a neat bundle containing a web server and a pre-installed and configured version of GuppY.

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