That's right, and to justify it, it's necessary to do some history and understand the difference between static and dynamic sites.
Static Site Generators are a technology with a lot of future, and you will hear about them more and more.
Flextatic is not the only CMS that generates static sites, but it is different because:
On this site you will find information about the flextatic's features, divided into two categories:
Those that are developed, are right now in an alpha state.
When you think of a new project that excites you, you tend to think that many other people will also be enthusiastic about the project, and that you will therefore be able to get ahead and have a potential market large enough to survive.
However, experience shows that this is not always the case.
That is the reason why it is announced despite not being finished, to try to check if the hypothesis is true, the product is interesting and there is that potential market.
Flextatic is an ambitious project, which will need external funding to be completed. Before developing it entirely, it is much better to validate the idea following the lean startup method.
The final launch date will depend on the total features of the product. To define what those features will be, I prefer it to be a collaborative process, in which we can all participate.
If you are interested in flextatic, subscribe to the newsletter or fill in the contact form.
At least initially, it will not be Open Source or free software. The licensing model proposed will be characteristic of a SaaS.
That does not mean that if I find a model that allows generating income from a free software license cannot be considered but it is not the main idea at this moment.
The business models through free software need a large number of users to thrive, and getting that large number of users will be very difficult for a young project, which tries to enter to the market with many features.
From that perspective, it seems better to create a payment model, which can provide income to develop the project in a stable way.
In addition, software solutions really show that they are necessary when there are customers willing to pay for them.
The main idea is to launch a crowdfunding campaign. As we said before, flextatic is an ambitious project.
If you can reach a critical amount to finance the development of the project through crowdfunding, you will get the most important of all, which is to validate the business idea.
In any case, any other way of obtaining funding that may be positive for the project will be considered.
At this moment, what could help the most is that you talk about the project. In your blog, in your twitter, in the medium you prefer, it would be very helpful if the project starts to be known.
The larger the community around flextatic, the easier it will be to get the necessary funding and get the project moving forward.
Other ways to help are:
That's the idea. If the community grows and there are people interested, an instance of flextatic in the cloud will be enabled, which will allow you to try it and use it for free.
It is possible that not all users who have requested it will be allowed to test it. That will depend on the number of requests.
So, remember again to get subscribed to the newsletter, to be informed about the first one.
It is not required. One of the most important differentiating aspects of flextatic is its interface, which will allow everything to be managed easily and intuitively.
What is true is that the creation of the template, as happens with almost all other CMS, must be done manually via HTML. Then that template will be uploaded to flextatic, and from there everything will be done using the GUI.
Later, if the project grows, templates automatically prepared for flextatic will be added, ready to be used with just one click, which would avoid this step.
The application's architecture is briefly described in the following image, in a very simplified way (Click on the image to enlarge):
My name is Toni Nieto, I'm 38 years old and I live near Barcelona (Spain). I am the only person behind the project.
During more than 15 years I have been dedicated to the web development world, as much in the technical part as in the management of projects and teams.
I have made totally static websites. I have also used Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, Liferay and others... enough to know what it's all about. I have also created custom CMS for customers.
You can see a summary of some of the projects I've done in my linkedin profile.
Flextatic emerges from that experience. It arises from having lived, and in many cases has suffered, the advantages and disadvantages of each system.
I want to build flextatic because I think it is essential to create a safer, more stable and faster web, and I think that static sites will be very important to achieve this.
The Content Management Systems that produce static sites will only become really popular when they become simple to use and offer end users what they need.
I do flextatic because I'm convinced that I'm not the only one with that vision, and I want to share it with you if you feel the same.
I do flextatic, finally, because it's the project I always dreamed of.
Yes, at the moment this same page that you're seeing :)
Soon my personal page will also be published
Of course, flextatic is:
At this time, content is edited using a RTE (Rich Text Editor), which generates HTML. Later on, the possibility of defining for each site whether the content should be edited in HTML or in markdown will be considered as a new feature.
Sites, content types, taxonomies and remote servers are created at the flextatic's instance level. By this way they are accessible to be associated to all websites later.
Currently, only publication via Git is supported.
In future versions, flextatic will include the possibility of publishing a site on several servers, which may be in addition to git, of the following types:
Flextatic will take care of uploading only the necessary files, and will create also a backup for every uploaded file.