--- title: "Discover Éclair CMS" description: "Éclair CMS builds a fast website with no database and no plugins. What it does, who it's for, its limits compared with WordPress and where to download it." url: "https://eclair.academy/en/paths/beginner/discover-eclair" lang: "en" author: "Thierry Gustin" published: "2026-11-02" updated: "2026-11-02" --- # Discover Éclair CMS > **Key takeaways** — Éclair CMS is a free PHP CMS, released under the MIT license, that works without a database. Your content lives in protected files and every page is served from a static cache. SEO, GEO, security, an AI assistant and a lightweight shop are built in, for freelancers, craftspeople, small businesses, nonprofits and agencies. Éclair CMS is free software for creating and managing a professional website on shared hosting, with no database and no plugins. This lesson explains what it does, how it serves your pages and who it's for. In ten minutes, you'll know whether it suits your project. > **Before you start** — Time: 10 minutes of reading. No technical prerequisites: this lesson opens the [Beginner path](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/beginner). You'll install Éclair two lessons later, in [Install Éclair step by step](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/beginner/install-eclair). ## What you'll be able to do ### 💡 Understand Éclair Explain what Éclair is and how it serves your pages without a database. ### 🎯 Make an informed choice Compare Éclair with WordPress and know its real limits. ### 🚀 Get the right archive Download the official 1.8.0 release and its complete guide. ## What is Éclair CMS? A CMS (content management system) is the software that lets you edit your website from a browser, without writing code. Éclair CMS is one of them, written in PHP and designed to take up very little space: the official archive weighs **480 KB** and the complete CMS less than 1 MB. Éclair was created by Thierry Gustin and is distributed under the **MIT license**: you can use, modify and redistribute it freely, including for commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice. The current version is **1.8.0**. The admin is available in 7 languages, and the public site in 6 (French, Spanish, English, German, Italian, Portuguese). Its principle fits in one sentence: what a professional site usually needs plugins for (SEO, security, caching, forms, a shop) is already built in. You upload a folder to your hosting, answer 4 questions, and your site is live with its first pages. ## Who is Éclair for? Éclair targets sites that need to be fast, well ranked and easy to maintain: - **Freelancers and independents**: a site in your name, your skills, an expert blog. - **Craftspeople and shops**: a business website with your services, your contact details and, if needed, a few products. - **Small businesses and nonprofits**: clear pages, a contact form, news. - **Agencies**: the license allows commercial use, and editor accounts let your clients write without access to the settings. Take Camille Martin, who runs Atelier Nova, a ceramics studio in Lyon. She wants to present her classes, publish tips and receive sign-up requests, without spending her evenings updating plugins. That's a typical Éclair use case, and it's the example followed throughout this path. ## How does Éclair CMS work without a database? On a classic WordPress site, every public page is generated on each visit, unless you add a cache plugin. Éclair does the opposite, thanks to three mechanisms: 1. **Protected files instead of a database**: content, settings and accounts are stored in the `data/` folder, which can't be accessed from the web. Each file also starts with the line ``: even a misconfigured server would display nothing. 2. **A static cache**: each page is generated once, then served directly by `index.php`, without loading the application. The cache clears itself on every change. 3. **Light pages**: the CSS is inlined in the page, images are converted to WebP on upload, and the public site has a single deferred script of 1.2 KB compressed. No cookies are set for your visitors. As a result, the project scores 100/100 on Lighthouse with a 0.7 ms server response time, measured locally. On real shared hosting, add the network latency and your host's PHP startup time. ![Lighthouse at 100 in all four categories, with the HTML and JavaScript weight of an Éclair page](https://eclair.academy/media/2026/11/eclair-academy-performance-en.webp) *Measured locally on the demo site, with Lighthouse 12* ## What Éclair includes out of the box | Area | What's included | | --- | --- | | SEO | Live analysis with a score, Google preview, JSON-LD structured data, sitemap, automatic 301 redirects | | GEO | `llms.txt` file, a Markdown version of every page, rules for 30 AI bots, GEO score | | Security | Two-factor authentication, brute-force protection, strict headers, Security page | | Writing | 18-block editor with the `/` menu, Visual mode, history of the last 20 versions | | Design | 6 themes and 12 art directions, with live preview | | AI | Built-in assistant (Claude or ChatGPT with your API key) and MCP connector (with your Claude or ChatGPT subscription) | | Selling | Lightweight shop: product pages and payment through a Stripe, PayPal or Revolut Business link | GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) makes your content easy for answer engines such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini to understand and cite. You'll explore it in detail in the [Intermediate path](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/intermediate). ![The Éclair editor with SEO and GEO scores at 100, and the published article shown on a phone](https://eclair.academy/media/2026/11/eclair-academy-showcase-en.webp) *The editor, its scores and an article's mobile rendering* ## Éclair CMS vs. WordPress | | Classic WordPress | Éclair | | --- | --- | --- | | Installation | Create a MySQL database, then run the wizard | Upload the folder, answer 4 questions | | Database | MySQL required | None (protected files) | | Download size | ≈ 35 MB | 480 KB | | SEO, sitemap, structured data | A plugin to install and maintain | Built in | | Public pages | Generated on every visit, unless you add a cache plugin | Served from a static cache | | Cookies on the public site | Often many | None | | Two-factor authentication | Plugin | Built in | The WordPress 7.1.4 archive weighs 35.5 MB (checked on October 29, 2026 on [downloads.wordpress.org](https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-7.1.4.zip), as cited in Éclair's documentation). ## What are Éclair's limits? Éclair makes deliberate choices. It's better to know them before you start: - **No plugins**: you can't add a third-party module in one click. To go beyond the settings, you write [custom CSS](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/intermediate/custom-css) or edit the [theme templates](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/expert/theme-customization). - **A deliberately simple shop**: no multi-product cart, discount codes, customer accounts or automatic inventory management. For hundreds of products, a full e-commerce platform (Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop) is a better fit. - **A compatible server**: PHP 8.1 or later, ideally Apache or LiteSpeed. Nginx works, provided you copy the `.htaccess` rules into its configuration ([Nginx, VPS, proxy and CDN](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/expert/nginx-vps)). - **Menus shared by all languages**: in the standard theme, a [multilingual site](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/intermediate/multilingual-site) shares the same header and footer menus. ## Where can you download Éclair CMS? The official source is the project's GitHub repository: [github.com/Jacckisback/eclair-cms](https://github.com/Jacckisback/eclair-cms). There you'll find the commented source code, the complete guide in 7 languages and the ready-to-install archive, [eclair-cms-1.8.0.zip](https://github.com/Jacckisback/eclair-cms/raw/main/dist/eclair-cms-1.8.0.zip). Once unzipped, the archive contains: - the `eclair` folder, which is your future site; - `LISEZ-MOI.txt`, a summary of the installation in three steps (in French); - the MIT license and the third-party component notices. > **A single source** — Only download Éclair from this repository: an archive found elsewhere may have been modified. Once the site is installed, the **Security** page compares every file with its original fingerprint and flags any difference. ## Key points - Éclair CMS is a free PHP CMS under the MIT license, under 1 MB, with no database and no plugins. - Your content lives in protected files in the `data/` folder, and every page is served from a static cache. - SEO, GEO, security, the AI assistant, the MCP connector, themes and the lightweight shop are built in. - It suits business websites, blogs and small shops, not catalogs of hundreds of products. ## Going further - [Prepare your installation](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/beginner/prepare-installation): domain, hosting, server requirements and a checklist before you start. - [Choosing your hosting](https://eclair.academy/en/hosting): the criteria that matter for Éclair and the hosting providers reviewed. - [Reference for the 18 blocks](https://eclair.academy/en/docs/blocks): everything the editor can display, block by block. - The [official Éclair guide](https://github.com/Jacckisback/eclair-cms/blob/main/docs/GUIDE.en.md), on GitHub, details every feature. ## Frequently asked questions ### Is Éclair CMS really free? Yes. It's distributed under the MIT license, with no Éclair subscription. You pay for your hosting and your domain name and, if you turn on the AI assistant, for your API key usage directly to Anthropic or OpenAI. ### Do I need to know how to code to use Éclair? No. Installation uses a 4-question wizard, and the editor works with blocks, like a word processor. Code is only needed if you want to customize the theme templates. ### Can I switch from WordPress to Éclair? Yes. Smart paste brings in your text from a web page, and the redirect manager sends your old URLs to the new ones. The complete method is in the [Migrate from WordPress or Wix](https://eclair.academy/en/paths/expert/migrate-wordpress) lesson. ### Where is my content stored without a database? In the files of the `data/` folder on your hosting, which can't be accessed from the web. To back up your site, click **Download a backup** on the **Security** page, or copy the `data/` and `media/` folders via FTP.