39 comments

  • Gareth PriceGareth Price, almost 8 years ago

    I can't read any of the text. Im not on a retina screen but still.

    Cant see anything

    7 points
  • Oliver PattisonOliver Pattison, almost 8 years ago

    Nice that it uses Twig – for anyone familiar with Liquid (Jekyll, Shopify, others), Twig will be familiar territory for templating and configuration.

    6 points
  • Cihad TurhanCihad Turhan, almost 8 years ago

    I've tried Kirby, found it practical and easy to learn.

    Anyone has experience with both Kirby and Grav so can compare for us?

    4 points
    • Roman HorokhovatskyyRoman Horokhovatskyy, almost 8 years ago

      Definitely I will compare it, I’ve use Kirby from the first beta’s.

      0 points
    • Bryant HughesBryant Hughes, almost 8 years ago

      Haven't used Grav, but Kirby has been a little frustrating for me. The API itself is a little annoying, and configuring and extending plugins is also overly complicated. It does a nice job of content organization, but aside from that it feels a little thrown together.

      Looks like Grav might improve on a few of these things, so I'll def be taking a look

      1 point
    • Mike PropstMike Propst, almost 8 years ago

      Really curious to hear about this as well — I use Kirby for my own site and I like it. This seems very similar but with some added benefits, like Twig.

      1 point
  • Karol OrzełKarol Orzeł, almost 8 years ago

    Wonderful CMS. Blazing fast, pleasure to use. I'm using it on many projects already. You'll love Twig integration.

    2 points
  • Paul Hibbitts, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

    I've really enjoyed using Grav to create an online companion for a course I teach on user interface design (http://cmpt-363-153.hibbittsdesign.com/).

    With Grav I've been able to do things I could never easily do with other CMS's/LMS's, such as creating custom presentation templates using Twig, re-using content with Grav's support of modular pages, and since Grav is a no-DB CMS I have my entire site (code and content) on GitHub so I can offer the ability for students to also contribute. Even on shared hosting Grav is really fast and very portable (simple file copies). Lots of support too, both in the Forum and Gitter room!

    1 point
  • BAKA .kidBAKA .kid, almost 8 years ago

    I tired to use Grav on shared hosting (bluehost) with a previous version, and i could not get it to work, but i will try again now it is V1.0 and if that doesn't work, i will probably get a different host for this project.

    I love the idea, and from everything i have seen this is perfect for me!

    0 points
    • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

      We have various hosting guides in the docs: http://learn.getgrav.org/hosting

      Although we don't have a bluehost one yet, you might get some useful information from these others. If you are looking for a new host, the top 3 in the list are highly recommended as they use fast Litespeed web server (compatible with Apache), SSD drives, and fast XEON processors.

      1 point
  • Paul BestPaul Best, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

    This seems tailor-made to replace our modern WordPress worklow. One question – what solutions does Grav have to complex webform creation?

    We use Gravity Forms on virtually every project. Without a database, how could we handle form submissions?

    0 points
    • Flavio Copes, almost 8 years ago

      Our Form Plugin does the job: https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-form/

      Form entries are stored in the filesystem, in YAML / json format, in a user/data folder, and they can be visualized through the Data Manager plugin (https://github.com/getgrav/grav-plugin-data-manager/).

      Form submissions can be emailed, and you pretty much do whatever you want.

      Not having a database is not a limit :)

      2 points
    • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

      Grav has a forms plugin that lets you build forms via a YAML configuration file. You can store results in whatever format you like (JSON/txt/etc), or email. This can be expanded with plugins to do other things with the data like sending to 3rd party services.

      You also have complete control over how these forms look as you can easily override the Twig templates that render the forms.

      Currently there is no GUI for building forms, but they are simply built by configuring a YAML blueprint for the form. Check out this example.

      0 points
  • Moaaz SidatMoaaz Sidat, almost 8 years ago

    Was actually looking for an open-source flat CMS solution that would be relatively a breeze to setup. Grav looks promising, looking forward to trying it out!

    0 points
  • Robert Deniszczyc, almost 8 years ago

    I know it is fundamentally different but can someone summarise what this offers me what something like WordPress doesn't?

    0 points
    • Stuart McCoyStuart McCoy, almost 8 years ago

      Your sanity?

      7 points
    • Bryant HughesBryant Hughes, almost 8 years ago

      On a basic level:

      Flat file CMS (No database) There isn't a database needed to power the site. This means all content is stored within static files, and you don't need to configure or manage a database. If you're controlling your files within a code repository, all you need to do to update is deploy the latest revisions

      Uses Twig Twig is a templating library that makes accessing PHP data from within the templates very easy. It's very expressive and IMO is a good mix of providing a lot of functionality often needed in templates, but not being overly verbose or hard to use.

      Smartly Architected I haven't used wordpress in a while, but when I was, the code was definitely not object oriented, and extending the core functionality was difficult. I haven't looked at the code for Grav, but it sounds like it uses Dependency Injection and other contemporary PHP architecture patterns. All of this making the platform much easier to extend and build on top of.

      There are definitely a bunch of other differences, but these are the big ones.

      4 points
    • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

      I'm the lead developer for Grav, but I'll give you a summary although I realize I'm somewhat biased :)

      WordPress is fundamentally a blog platform. Under the covers its a PHP4-based system that over the years has developed into what exists today. New things have been added to provide enhanced functionality but there's lots of old legacy code in there. WordPress also relies on a database to store data.

      Grav, is a modern flat file CMS that requires PHP 5.4 and newer. Being flat file based, means it can easily be moved, copied, stored on Dropbox, Github wherever. You can instantly have a 100% identical copy on your local, staging, production environments.

      Grav is not a blog, but can be, it really can be anything. There are no limits to what you can build. The Grav docs are built with it, the Grav site is built with it. You can build anything, your not constantly working around a 'blog' mentality.

      This is because in traditional CMS platforms (WordPress included) the platform dictates everything, It dictates what kind of content you can use, what functionality is available, how you build your pages, everything that impacts how your is built, really is about following what the platform can do. Of course you can extend this by installing plugins and extensions, but then you follow those rules.

      Grav is different, there is a much closer relationship between your content and your theme. There are no fixed rules for what types of pages are supported, there is no fixed structure to follow. This may sound daunting at first, but we have built many pre-built skeleton packages that are a ready-to-run Grav install with content+theme+plugins that show how varied your setups can be.

      We have an RTFM package that shows how Grav can be used to build a powerful documentation site, we have many one-page skeletons that make use of Grav's powerful modular pages to show you how easy it is to build modern landing pages. We have blog skeletons with a variety of themes that have been easily ported from other platforms, Business sites, even a resume example!

      Grav is also much faster, more secure, more extensible, etc, but it comes down the fact that you have more control, and frankly it's a helluva lot more enjoyable process to build a site with Grav than WordPress.

      OK, longer than I intended. Apologies for that, but so summaries: Grav is built for a few audiences:

      1. It's better for Designers to more easily realize their design goals
      2. It's better for Developers that need to easily add custom functionality
      3. It's better for Users because it's fast, solid, reliable, easily maintainable, and the admin is simple and focused

      Join us the dev team and the users of Grav our on Gitter.im Chat Room to chat about it in more depth :)

      5 points
      • Weston Thayer, almost 8 years ago

        Thanks for the detailed comparison against Wordpress. Why should I choose Grav over a static site generator like Middleman?

        0 points
        • Flavio Copes, almost 8 years ago

          Because a static site generator gives you a static site :)

          A Grav site is much more flexible and powerful than a static site, while still being able to provide static-site-like speed because of its built-in extensive caching capabilities.

          0 points
          • Weston Thayer, almost 8 years ago

            Sure, but you can use client-side JavaScript to light up a lot of non-static behavior. If I want comments, I can use Discuss. If I want search, I can use Tapir.

            0 points
            • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

              Third party JS integrated services are great! We use Muut for our forum on getgrav.org, but often there is a need for dynamic server-side capabilities that can't be handled via client-side only logic. This is where traditional CMSes typically come in, and this is where Grav is a great option.

              0 points
        • Weston VierreggerWeston Vierregger, almost 8 years ago (edited almost 8 years ago )

          (Off-topic: <3 Another Weston.)

          1 point
  • Matt RothenbergMatt Rothenberg, almost 8 years ago

    This looks very promising!

    I'm not seeing too much re: support for custom metadata, à la http://www.advancedcustomfields.com/. This plugin has been a godsend for Wordpress development -- I wonder if Grav has something similar?

    0 points
    • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

      Support for custom fields is an inherent feature in Grav. No need for a plugin. Just add whatever custom field s you need to your page's frontmatter definition and they are available to use when you render the page.

      More details in the Page Headers section of the Grav docs.

      BTW, you can add these to the admin via Blueprints.

      2 points
  • Faiz MokhtarFaiz Mokhtar, almost 8 years ago

    This looks pretty cool! Do you use it?

    0 points
    • Benjamin DautonBenjamin Dauton, almost 8 years ago

      No, but I plan to use it ;)

      It seems to be easier to learn than the other flat CMS tools.

      0 points
      • Andy MillerAndy Miller, almost 8 years ago

        I'm sure you will find that Grav has the best support, and best community involvement of any CMS out there. I strive to ensure this is the case. I personally monitor and answer pretty much every question we get on our forums, twitter, chat room etc. I doubt you will find a more helpful community :)

        1 point
        • Stele PetStele Pet, almost 8 years ago

          +1 for Grav's support. I finally got fed up with WordPress and the challenge of finding good answers to questions that came up. The Grav forum is fun to use and full of a growing number of folks with helpful questions and answers.

          0 points