very interesting how these things come and go. one day we talk about flat-file frameworks and, for a long period of time, we forget about them. i remember when joomla, wordpress, and the other bazillion php frameworks were all coming about and we debated flat-files vs database-backed frameworks.
one that stood out at the time among flat-filers was textpattern -- not sure if the very yellowish branding was the reason.
databases won over flat-files though. primarily because the web needed to scale. it is also worth mentioning sqlite which at the time was, and still is, a perfect middle ground.
I am not so sure the scale is main reason. Most wordpress sites are static content and run db+site on same server. They are scaled using caching which sort of makes it like static website.
The same approach is used with big flat file sites. Editing on dynamic portion and viewers see cashed site.
Many big sites actualy use cmses as static site generators. But cashing is not that different.
one that stood out at the time among flat-filers was textpattern -- not sure if the very yellowish branding was the reason.
databases won over flat-files though. primarily because the web needed to scale. it is also worth mentioning sqlite which at the time was, and still is, a perfect middle ground.