NostalgiaPHP

NostalgiaPHP vs Early WordPress

Similarities

  1. PHP everywhere

    • Early WordPress themes were just .php files mixing HTML + PHP.
    • NostalgiaPHP does the same — e.g. templates/main.php looks a lot like an old WP page.php or index.php.

  2. Front-matter / metadata

    • WordPress always had the “post metadata” idea (title, date, slug).
    • NostalgiaPHP uses YAML-like front-matter at the top of Markdown files.

  3. Templates + partials

    • WP has header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php.
    • NostalgiaPHP has partials/header.php, partials/footer.php.
    • Same philosophy: break things into chunks for reuse.

  4. URL routing

    • Early WP “pretty permalinks” were powered by .htaccess rewrites to index.php.
    • NostalgiaPHP does exactly that.

  5. Markdown vibe

    • Early WordPress had a “write in plain text, let PHP render it” feeling.
    • NostalgiaPHP leans harder on Markdown instead of a WYSIWYG editor.

Differences

  1. Database

    • WordPress stores everything in MySQL (posts, pages, options).
    • NostalgiaPHP stores everything as flat files (Markdown + front-matter).

  2. Admin panel

    • Even in v1.0, WP had an admin dashboard for writing posts.
    • NostalgiaPHP has no GUI — you edit Markdown in your editor (like Astro or Jekyll).

  3. Extensibility

    • WordPress was designed with plugins/hooks from the start.
    • NostalgiaPHP is intentionally not extensible — it’s minimal, “what you see is what you get.”

  4. Ecosystem

    • WP grew into a CMS/blogging empire with themes, plugins, hosting, etc.
    • NostalgiaPHP is a micro-tool: no ecosystem, just simplicity.

  5. Scope creep

    • WordPress evolved from “just blogging” to “can power e-commerce + headless APIs + membership sites.”
    • NostalgiaPHP is a time capsule — it refuses to grow bloated, it stays small like early WP.

TL;DR

  • WordPress (early) = flat PHP templates + MySQL database + admin dashboard.
  • NostalgiaPHP = flat PHP templates + Markdown files + no dashboard.

If WP 1.0 felt like a “publishing tool for the everyman,” NostalgiaPHP is more like a “publishing tool for developers who miss the simplicity of 2004 but don’t want a database anymore.”