⚠️ END OF LIFE NOTICE: Pico CMS is no longer maintained. The latest stable release was v2.1.4 (August 29, 2020). Development has been abandoned. The maintainers recommend using alternatives like Grav CMS, Typemill, HTMLy, or Automad for new projects.
Pico CMS was a stupidly simple, blazing fast, flat-file CMS that makes creating and maintaining a website as simple as editing text files. It uses Markdown for content and Twig for templating, with no database required.
Pico CMS was created by Daniel Rudolf (PhrozenByte) and was designed for simplicity - just upload files and it works.
- Flat-file architecture: No database required, content stored in text files
- Markdown content: Write content in simple Markdown format
- Twig templating: Powerful theme system using Twig template engine
- No admin UI: Edit content directly in text files (or use community plugins)
- Simple deployment: Just upload files to web server
- Fast performance: No database queries
- Create/edit Markdown files in
content/ directory
- Pico processes Markdown through Twig templates
- Generates HTML pages on-the-fly (no static generation)
- Deploy by copying files to any PHP web server
- Traditional web server (Apache, Nginx)
- Shared hosting (PHP required)
- Containerized deployment with Docker
| Component |
Requirement |
| PHP |
5.3.6+ |
| PHP Extensions |
dom, mbstring |
| Database |
None (flat-file) |
| Web Server |
Apache, Nginx, or any PHP-capable server |
- License: MIT License (open-source)
- Cost: Free
- Status: End of Life (no longer maintained)
- Latest Stable: v2.1.4 (August 29, 2020)
- Status: ⚠️ END OF LIFE - No security updates available
For new projects, consider these actively maintained flat-file CMS alternatives:
- Grav CMS - Modern flat-file CMS with admin panel
- Typemill - Modern flat-file CMS
- HTMLy - Databaseless PHP blogging platform
- Automad - File-based CMS
¶ History and References
Any questions?
Feel free to contact us. Find all contact information on our contact page.