Why we save your website as plain files
Your website's content shouldn't be locked inside someone else's database. Here's how Clear CMS keeps it yours.
When you move a website from one system to another, the hard part is rarely the design. It's the content: years of pages, news, photos and settings, stored in a format only the old system understands.
Clear CMS avoids that trap on purpose. Every page, setting and photo is saved as ordinary files, in an open layout we call Mosaic: one small, readable file per page or item, and photos as normal image files. The files live in storage you control.
That has a few practical benefits:
You can take everything with you. The Export button downloads your whole site as a zip file, with or without its history. Keep it as a backup, or use it to move.
Nothing is hidden. Any developer can open the files and see exactly what's there. No special tools, no database dump.
Backups are simple. Copying files is the most boring, reliable thing a computer can do. That's what we want for your content.
It also means Clear CMS has to earn its place by being pleasant to use, not by making it hard to leave. We think that's the right way round.
Clear CMS avoids that trap on purpose. Every page, setting and photo is saved as ordinary files, in an open layout we call Mosaic: one small, readable file per page or item, and photos as normal image files. The files live in storage you control.
That has a few practical benefits:
You can take everything with you. The Export button downloads your whole site as a zip file, with or without its history. Keep it as a backup, or use it to move.
Nothing is hidden. Any developer can open the files and see exactly what's there. No special tools, no database dump.
Backups are simple. Copying files is the most boring, reliable thing a computer can do. That's what we want for your content.
It also means Clear CMS has to earn its place by being pleasant to use, not by making it hard to leave. We think that's the right way round.