Let me introduce myself.

Hi everyone!

I'm Alain, a Full Stack Web Developer and Technical Instructor based in the South of France.

Like many of you here, I’m a big advocate for database-free architectures and lightweight software. I’m the creator of FlatCMS, an open-source, flat-file content management system built with PHP and JSON.

I recently stumbled upon FlatBoard and was immediately impressed by its architecture and philosophy—it’s always inspiring to see other developers pushing the boundaries of flat-file solutions!

Happy to be part of the community, share experiences, and exchange ideas around PHP, flat-file design, and modern web development.

Cheers!

Welcome Alain! 👋
Great to have you here!
It’s always nice to see someone else who appreciates the simplicity of flat-file architectures. FlatCMS seems to share a lot of the same ideas as FlatBoard: keeping things lightweight, database-free, and powered by PHP.

With your experience in modern web development, I’m sure you’ll have some interesting things to share. Feel free to jump into discussions, compare approaches with FlatBoard’s JSON/SQLite storage, or share any tips and tricks you’ve picked up along the way.

Looking forward to seeing what you bring to the community. Cheers to keeping things simple and lightweight! 🚀

Fred

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome! 👋

I completely agree — there’s something very satisfying about building useful software while keeping the architecture simple, transparent, and lightweight.

FlatCMS and FlatBoard clearly share a similar philosophy, even though we’ve made different technical choices along the way. FlatCMS relies heavily on JSON and a modular HMVC architecture, so I’m particularly interested in seeing how FlatBoard approaches storage, performance, extensibility, and long-term maintainability with its JSON/SQLite model.

I think comparing those different approaches could lead to some really interesting discussions. There’s always something to learn from another project solving similar problems in a different way.

And who knows — FlatCMS and FlatBoard might even find some complementary use cases or opportunities to collaborate in the future. A lightweight CMS alongside a lightweight forum certainly makes sense. 😉

Looking forward to exploring the project further and exchanging ideas with you and the community.

Cheers from the South of France! 🇫🇷🚀
Alain