What Is Statamic Flat-File CMS? All Benefits & Features

What Is the Statamic Flat-File CMS?

Statamic is a flat-file content management system (CMS for short), because the website and its information is stored in files, not in a database. This has numerous advantages, especially when it comes to versioning and data modeling. As users, we notice very little of this technical process. Any information is managed through the Control Panel.

Why Is the Statamic Flat-File CMS Scalable?

Since information is stored in files and folders, Statamic is wonderfully suited to large volumes of data. Lengthy database queries are a thing of the past. Quite a few WordPress veterans will feel a sense of relief and recognition here.

Thanks to good administration tools, the structures can still be modeled however you like.

What Does Flat-File CMS Mean?

Short version:

With flat-file CMS, changes take place directly in the files. Instead of a database, folders and files are accessed. By nature, this process performs better than working with a database. The more data or the larger the data volumes, the more decisive and noticeable the difference becomes for users.

Long version:

A content management system (CMS for short) enables the central management of information for a website or web app, such as blog articles, website copy, images, and videos. This information has to be stored somewhere. With popular CMS providers like WordPress and Joomla, this information is stored in a database.

For every change to a text or image - i.e., information - the database is accessed, searched, and the desired change is processed. This process of querying and changing takes (a lot of) time.

Depending on the technical and financial framework, this process can be slower or faster. Execution speed is made up of the query, change, and transmission steps. With many large "everyday" database queries, execution speed drops and resources are consumed.

This problem is, among other things, what gave rise to the flat-file CMS approach.

What Does Headless CMS Mean?

Short version:

With headless CMS, data can be used independently of its "representation logic," i.e., its design. This offers enormous advantages, especially in terms of connectivity and reusability. Statamic already provides industry standards like RESTful and GraphQL.

Long version:

At its core, the development of headless content management systems is rooted in the desire not to lose time already invested in content creation, and to make better use of it through new approaches where needed. By applying this principle, content can be reused throughout the lifetime of a web presence. This goal is achieved by providing the data via interfaces. RESTful and GraphQL have since become the established industry standards for this. While most CMS support RESTful out of the box at most, Statamic can offer both solutions at once.

Possible use cases:

• Native apps

• Other websites

• Widgets

How Do I Manage Content in the Statamic CMS?

In the headless CMS, content is managed through a simple Control Panel. The Control Panel can be customized as needed for different user roles and applications.

Editors will be pleased, since content can be edited synchronously and efficiently without any issues. This was one of the reasons why the news outlet Spiegel relies on the headless CMS Statamic for its editorial team.

How Much Does the Statamic CMS Cost?

The Statamic CMS offers a free version, a Pro version, and an Enterprise version.

• The free version of Statamic is for personal use, hobbies, and friends

• The Pro version of Statamic offers more features, such as an unlimited number of users, updates, multilingual support, Git integration for developers, drafts, and revisions

• The Enterprise version of Statamic is ideal for newsrooms, corporations, and platforms

What Are the Top 10 Benefits of Statamic?

• Won the 2021 CMS Critic’s Choice Award for Flat File CMS

• Easy management of information

• Speed thanks to the flat-file approach (databases also possible)

• High usability & customization

• SEO friendliness (Google Vitals)

• Security

• Scaling

• Ecosystem of addons

• Built on a very active community in Laravel & PHP

• Open source / transparency

Differences Between the Statamic CMS and the WordPress CMS

* Hold on a moment - WordPress costs something?

Well. WordPress itself is free. But anyone who knows WordPress sites knows there’s basically no site that gets by without plugins, and anyone who wants a certain minimum level of functionality usually has to dig into their pocket.

Top 3 Reasons Why Statamic Is More Secure Than WordPress

1. Most website attacks happen via SQL injections. Since Statamic doesn’t use a database out of the box, this problem simply cannot occur.

2. Statamic developers or Statamic Partners build the website. That means there are no 30 plugins of dubious origin in use, as is often the case with WordPress. Typically, only 1 to 3 Statamic addons are used, if any at all.

3. Statamic is built on the Laravel PHP framework, which is highly secure and continuously developed further by its community.

What Is a Statamic Partner?

Definition: Statamic Partner

A Statamic Partner develops and maintains the Statamic CMS for clients. As a licensed Statamic Partner based in Vienna and Graz, we implement both small and large Statamic projects to the highest standards. As licensees, we are always up to date and offer our clients - such as A1, KFC, the University of Vienna, and many others - sustainable development and first-class customer support.

Who Is a Statamic Partner in Austria and Germany?

As a Statamic web agency and licensed Statamic Partner, we develop Statamic projects for regional and global market leaders, and those who aspire to be. Statamic delights our clients with fast, tailored ways to manage content, and delights us internally with an ease of development that wasn’t possible before. Coming from a background in WordPress development, all the Sushis were thrilled by the capabilities of the headless CMS Statamic. We hope you find it cool too 🤩. Take a look at our projects: www.sushi.dev/work.

Sources

• Background image by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

• Statamic Partner

• Everything about Statamic, from Statamic