Pico is a stupidly simple, blazing fast, flat file CMS.

Pico is a stupidly simple, blazing fast, flat file CMS. That’s definitely a mouthful, what does it even mean? In the most basic sense, it means that there is no administration backend or database to deal with. You simply create markdown files in the content folder and those files become your pages. There’s much more to Pico than that though.

Let’s get this out of the way: Pico is not a turn-key solution. Pico trades one-click setups and complex management interfaces for blazing speed, flexibility, and a lightweight footprint. If a little bit of reading and some basic configuration sounds like too much then Pico is probably not for you.

That being said, Pico is incredibly extendable and customizable. With a very small amount of configuration, you’ll find yourself with a very personalized experience. There’s also a growing community creating ready-to-go themes and plugins for Pico. It is very possible to get started with Pico even with no prior knowledge of HTML. You’ll find however that a little bit of coding knowledge will get you a long way.

Now let’s dive into what makes Pico different from other solutions.

A Flat File CMS

Pico is a Content Management System, or CMS. If you’ve heard the term before, it’s likely in the context of WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or many of the other popular CMS’s on the block. A Content Management System makes creating a beautiful and well-organized website easy and frustration free. It can also help those without extensive knowledge of programming on the web to achieve the same professional quality website as those that do.

Most Content Management Systems make use of extensive databases to hold their content. These databases can sometimes require a confusing setup process, though this is often obscured by one-click setup utilities. While they can be simple to set up thanks to these utilities, users may experience difficulty when trying to modify, edit, or migrate their content. Everything that makes their site “what it is” is locked up in a hard-to-manage database. Anyone who’s tried to migrate their WordPress installation from one server to another has likely experienced this pain.

Pico is different. With Pico, all your content is stored as “flat files”, which is pretty much exactly as it sounds. When using Pico, all your site content is stored as simple text files. It remains readily available to modify, edit, organize, and migrate as you see fit.

Unlike a traditional CMS, Pico doesn’t require write access on your server to function. This makes it more secure by design and reduces difficult PHP configuration. Since Pico doesn’t use a database for its backend, it has very low system requirements and will run on almost any web space. Databases can often be a bottleneck on your site’s performance, especially with a larger website. For a smaller site, a database-driven CMS is often overkill.

If you’ve ever found yourself frustrated, trying to navigate the complicated administration interface of a traditional CMS and not being able to find that one setting you need to change, Pico could be a refreshing change of pace. Pico’s configuration is all located in one text file, and is provided as a template with your installation. Themes and Plugins may have additional options, but Pico’s core requires only a small amount of configuration. In fact, you’ll likely leave most of this file commented out, only changing the options that matter to you.

There really isn’t much more to say about it. The beauty of Pico is in its simplicity. If you want to create a new page, you make a new file. That’s it. But that’s far from the end of the story. Despite Pico’s simplicity, you’ll find it incredibly powerful, and ready to take on any task.