Chyrp is a blogging engine designed to be very lightweight while retaining functionality. It is powered by PHP and has very powerful theme and extension engines, so you can personalize it however you want. The code is well-documented, and it has a very strong structure that’s loosely based on the MVC design pattern.

Chyrp is an open source microblogging platform. The software was designed to be as simple and easy to use as possible. This, of course, means, there aren’t very many features.The project was first started by a single developer Alex Suraci, in 2004. At that time, it was called Mynimal CMS.The design was a reaction to WordPress, which was gaining in popularity at the time (and has since come to dominate self-hosted blogging).Suraci saw WordPress as too complicated, too “bloated,” and too slow. The software that eventually became Chyrp was designed from the beginning to be easy to read and maintain.

In 2010, Suraci announced that the project would not continue. However, another developer took over and continued working on Chyrp. Development was relatively active after that, especially in 2012 when an anonymous donor enabled the lead developer to work on the system full-time.By 2015, development seems to have tapered off. The official website became unavailable in September of 2015, and (as of the end of 2016) has not come back up.A few minor contributions have been made to the project’s official GitHub repo, but no serious development has taken place in some time.

Chyrp is a simple cms which is modern. It is one of the softaculous apps for creating simple php blog content. It is a way to build traditional content. Chyrp is a fresh content management system. They will allow you to host blog on your own hosting server. Moreover, you can do that with minimum fuss. Also, it is possible to create tumble content with them. In other words, it is a general purpose web publishing platform like mambo cms. Blogging features are available on the site. Feathers and pages are built-in with their easy to use program.

As we all know, feather is a solid way to enable blog contents in different types. Multimedia rainbow and textual purity are two cool features of chyrp platform. Page system will enable you to publish content separately. In other words, You can separate your articles from your home page. Visitors will experience a dashing home page once reach your website. Then they can navigate to multiple pages which are mainly articles of your site. In other words, your website will become professional and easy to navigate in this way. Chyrp is really easy to install and maintenance system is simple.

Designing system of chyrp are extensible. Their content management system comes with built-in w3c-validated html5 which is totally responsive. Support system is available for mark down, raw markup and plain text. It is easy to personalize your website or blog content with chyrp. That is because, they are offering extensions for your. Twig template engine is another cool feature that makes theme development easy for you. There is a comprehensive rights model from which you will be able to manage your users and visitors. Some other features are text, photo, quote, link, video, audio and upload system with cache service.

Chyrp Features and Advantages

From a developer perspective, Chyrp is clean, well-organized, and easy to extend. The codebase is small enough that a single developer can actually understand the whole thing. It is also very well documented, in the code.

If you want to know how something works, and you understand PHP, you can easily find it and figure it out. Extending Chyrp is also very easy. New content types (“Feathers”) are created by simply extending a single class. Modules have a predictable design and logic.

Chyrp is also easy to host. The requirements are fairly minimal and can be met on most shared hosting plans. All you need is PHP 5.2+ and either MySQL 4.1+ or SQLite 3+. Installation is pretty easy, especially if you just use SQLite — but even with MySQL, it isn’t hard at all.

For users of Chyrp, the main advantage is simplicity. There are a handful of themes to choose from, but not so many as to become overwhelming. (And creating a new theme isn’t nearly as complicated as creating a new theme in WordPress.)

There is a focus on blogging and content-sharing, and not a lot else. Unlike WordPress or other CMSs, there simply aren’t that many features. You can log in and post items, post from your email… and that’s really about it.

Core modules include basic usability features like comments, captcha, tagging, and liking. There are, though, no ecommerce solutions built on Chyrp, no discussion forums, no project management systems. It’s just microblogging.

The “Feathers” feature encourages bloggers and designers to display different types of content differently. You might post a single photo, a link, an inspirational quote, a video, a status update, or a full blog post.

Should we use Chyrp:

Unless development becomes a lot more active, probably not — especially if you’re not a developer or a pretty strong techie. For the casual, non-technical user, running a site on software that isn’t actively being improved and supported, can cause all sorts of problems.

There isn’t a community of of users and developers to answer questions or provide advice when the inevitable problems come up and there’s no one to fix security problems that might arise.

Developers and techie tinkerers might find Chyrp a worthwhile platform, though. The code, as it exists, is solid, well organized, and well documented. If you’re into PHP (or trying to learn it), Chyrp is a decent project to spend your time on.

Alternatives to Chyrp

If you really like Chyrp, or are already using it, you may be looking for other software apps that are similar to it. Finding the right Chyrp alternative depends on what aspects of Chyrp’s feature set you are most interested in. Here are a few options:

Chyrp Lite

The most obvious replacement for Chyrp is Chyrp Lite. Chyrp Lite is a fork of Chyrp, created after Chyrp development seemed to taper off in 2015. It is largely the work of a single user/developer, Daniel Pimley.

Chyrp Lite is an “aggressive” renovation of the Chyrp code. The aspect of Chyrp that Pimley was most interested in preserving was its lean efficiency. Chyrp Lite is intended to be even more lean and efficient — hence the name.

From a user standpoint, the projects are largely similar. The HTML output of a Chyrp Lite site is responsive, ARIA-labelled, accessible, and semantic.

WordPress and Post Formats

If the most important feature of Chyrp is the Feathers system, which allows different types of content to be displayed in a different ways easily, then WordPress might be a good choice for you.

It continues to have all the same “problems” first identified by Chyrp’s creator —- it is very large, complicated system that does a lot of things. No single developer can know the entire codebase inside and out.

Even with all that, though, it is very easy to install and use. The vast majority of web host companies provide WordPress hosting plans.

WordPress introduced the Post Format feature in Version 3.1. Post Formats are just a piece of meta-data associated with a post, identifying it as a certain type of content: aside, gallery, link, image, quote, status, video, audio, and chat.

Themes are then free to use (or not use) that designation in order to display the post differently. There are many free WordPress themes that support Post Formats.

Tumblr

Chyrp was conceived as a microblog. Before microblogs were called microblogs they were called tumbleblogs or tumblelogs. If you don’t care about self-hosting your tumbleblog, a good alternative to Chyrp is Tumblr, the most popular microblogging site.Tumblr has all the features that users like about Chyrp — it’s simple to set up, different types of content display differently, you can post content from anywhere.Giving up the control of your own hosting plan also provides you with a connection to the larger Tumblr community, making it easier to share your content.Chyrp was a great idea, but using software from a defunct project is hardly ever a good idea. Try one of these Chyrp alternatives and remember — your content matters more than which (micro)blogging engine you use.

Setup Chyrp-lite CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 | 18.10 with Nginx, MariaDB and PHP 7.2-FPM:

Chyrp-lite CMS is an open source, ultra-lightweight blogging engine written in PHP that can be used to create your content and structure with control over everything, including all your own HTML.If you want a Content Management System (CMS) that is easy to install, simple to maintain and extensible, then Chyrp-lite is a good place to start… It is built on an open source core with support for open standards, which might be very useful in helping you run your digital content…

This CMS platform is designed for ease of use to allow webmasters to collaborate and automate engaging experiences with users across multiple devices, including mobile.This is going to show students and new users how to install Chyrp-lite CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 / 18.10 and 18.04 LTS…

To get started with installing Chyrp-lite, follow the steps below:

Step 1: Install Nginx HTTP Server

Chyrp-lite requires a web server and Nginx HTTP server is probably the second most popular open source web server available today… To install Nginx server, run the commands below:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

After installing Nginx, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable Nginx service to always start up with the server boots…

sudo systemctl stop nginx.service
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

Now that Nginx is installed…. to test whether the web server is working, open your browser and browse to the URL below…

http://localhost

If you see the page above, then Nginx is successfully installed…

Step 2: Install MariaDB Database Server

Chyrp-lite also requires a database server to store its content… If you’re looking for a truly open source database server, then MariaDB is a great place to start… To install MariaDB run the commands below:

sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

After installing MariaDB, the commands below can be used to stop, start and enable MariaDB service to always start up when the server boots…

Run these on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mysql.service
sudo systemctl start mysql.service
sudo systemctl enable mysql.service

Run these on Ubuntu 18.10 and 18.04 LTS

sudo systemctl stop mariadb.service
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Next, run the commands below to secure the database server with a root password if you were not prompted to do so during the installation…

sudo mysql_secure_installation

When prompted, answer the questions below by following the guide.

• Enter current password for root (enter for none): Just press the Enter
• Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
• New password: Enter password
• Re-enter new password: Repeat password
• Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
• Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
• Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]:  Y
• Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]:  Y

Now that MariaDB is installed, to test whether the database server was successfully installed, run the commands below…

sudo mysql -u root -p

type the root password when prompted…

If you see a similar screen as shown above, then the server was successfully installed…

Step 3: Install PHP 7.2 and Related Modules

Chyrp-lite is a PHP based CMS and PHP is required… However, PHP 7.2 may not be available in Ubuntu default repositories… To run PHP 7.2 on Ubuntu 16.04 and previous, you may need to run the commands below:

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php

Then update and upgrade to PHP 7.2

sudo apt update

Next, run the commands below to install PHP 7.2 and related modules.

sudo apt install php7.2-fpm php7.2-common php7.2-mysql php7.2-gmp php7.2-curl php7.2-intl php7.2-mbstring php7.2-xmlrpc php7.2-gd php7.2-bcmath php7.2-xml php7.2-cli php7.2-zip

After installing PHP 7.2, run the commands below to open PHP default configuration file for Nginx…

sudo nano /etc/php/7.2/fpm/php.ini

The lines below is a good settings for most PHP based CMS… Update the configuration file with these and save….

file_uploads = On
allow_url_fopen = On
short_open_tag = On
memory_limit = 256M
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 0
upload_max_filesize = 100M
max_execution_time = 360
date.timezone = America/Chicago

Everytime you make changes to PHP configuration file, you should also restart Nginx web server… To do so, run the commands below:

sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Now that PHP is installed, to test whether it’s functioning, create a test file called phpinfo.php in Nginx default root directory…. ( /var/www/html/)

sudo nano /var/www/html/phpinfo.php

Then type the content below and save the file.

<?php phpinfo( ); ?>

Next, open your browser and browse to the server’s hostname or IP address followed by phpinfo.php

http://localhost/phpinfo.php

You should see PHP default test page…

Step 4: Create Chyrp-lite Database

Now that you’ve installed all the packages that are required for Chyrp-lite to function, continue below to start configuring the servers. First run the commands below to create a blank Chyrp-lite database.

To logon to MariaDB database server, run the commands below.

sudo mysql -u root -p

Then create a database called chyrp

CREATE DATABASE chyrp;

Create a database user called chyrpuser with a new password

CREATE USER 'chyrpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'new_password_here';

Then grant the user full access to the database.

GRANT ALL ON chyrp.* TO 'chyrpuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'user_password_here' WITH GRANT OPTION;

Finally, save your changes and exit.

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Step 5: Download Chyrp-lite Latest Release

To get Chyrp-lite latest release you may want to use Github repository… Install git tool to download Chyrp-lite packages…..

sudo apt install git

After installing curl and Composer above, change into the Nginx root directory and download Chyrp-lite packages from Github…

cd /var/www/html
sudo git clone https://github.com/xenocrat/chyrp-lite.git

Then run the commands below to set the correct permissions for Chyrp-lite root directory and give Nginx control….

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/chyrp-lite/
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/chyrp-lite/

Step 6: Configure Nginx

Finally, configure Apahce2 site configuration file for Chyrp-lite. This file will control how users access WebsiteBaker content. Run the commands below to create a new configuration file called chyrp-lite

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/chyrp-lite

Then copy and paste the content below into the file and save it. Replace the highlighted line with your own domain name and directory root location.

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    root /var/www/html/chyrp-lite;
    index  index.php index.html index.htm;
    server_name  example.com www.example.com;

     client_max_body_size 100M;
  
     autoindex off;

    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }

    location ~ \.php$ {
         include snippets/fastcgi-php.conf;
         fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
         fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         include fastcgi_params;
    }
}

Save the file and exit.

Step 7: Enable the Chyrp-lite Site

After configuring the VirtualHost above, enable it by running the commands below

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/chyrp-lite /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl restart nginx.service

Then open your browser and browse to the server domain name. You should see Chyrp-lite setup wizard to complete. Please follow the wizard carefully.

http://example.com/install.php

Then follow the on-screen instruction… Type in the database connection info you created above and create an admin account for the backend… When you’re ready, click Install Me!

That’s it! You can now logon and start creating great posts…

 

Congratulation! You have successfully installed Chyrp-lite CMS on Ubuntu 16.04 | 18.04 and 18.10.

Chyrp is a blogging engine designed to be lightweight while retaining functionality. It is driven by PHP and MySQL (or SQLite), and has a great standard theme and robust module engine. You can personalize and modify it any way you want.All of your content is powered by a unique Feathers system that allows Chyrp to be whatever you want it to be. You can post anything and everything, or just stick to the default Text feather and run a regular blog. Chyrp destroys the fine line between a blog and a tumblelog.

Requirements

Chyrp will thrive on virtually any server setup, but we guarantee Chyrp to run on no less than:

• PHP 5 >= 5.2.0
• MySQL:
  • MySQL 4.1+
• SQLite:
  • SQLite 3+
  • PDO

These requirements are more of guidelines, as these are the earliest versions of the services that we have tested Chyrp on. If you are successfully running Chyrp on an earlier version of these services, let us know.

Installation

Installing Chyrp is easier than you expect. You can do it in four steps:

1. If using MySQL, create a MySQL database with a username and password.
2. Download, unzip, and upload.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to where you uploaded Chyrp.
4. Follow through the installer at index.php.

That’s it! Chyrp will be up and running and ready for you to use.

Upgrading

Keeping Chyrp up to date is important to make sure that your blog is as safe and as awesome as possible.

1. Download the latest version of Chyrp from http://chyrp.net/.
2. Copy your config files¹ to somewhere safe.
3. Disable any Modules/Feathers that you downloaded for the release you’re upgrading from.
4. Overwrite your current Chyrp installation files with the new ones.
5. Restore your config files¹ back to /includes/.
6. Upgrade by navigating to upgrade.php, and restore any backups.
7. Re-enable your Modules/Feathers.
8. Run the upgrader again. It will run the Module/Feather upgrade tasks.

¹ The config files vary depending on what you’re upgrading from. Any of these in are considered “config files”:

• /includes/config.yaml.php
• /includes/database.yaml.php
• /includes/config.yml.php
• /includes/database.yml.php
• /includes/config.php
• /includes/database.php

Extensions

Chyrp isn’t complete without activating a few extensions. Extensions add functionality (ex. audio clips, video, photos) to Chyrp. You can find extensions for Chyrp made by the Chyrp community at http://chyrp.net/extend.

Installing Extensions

To install extensions, you have to determine what type of extension it is. It can be a module, a feather, a theme, or a localization. There’s a different setup process for each type.

Feathers

Feathers add new post types to Chyrp. Post types determine what kind of media you can display in your blog.

1. Download and unzip the feather
2. Upload the feather to the feathers/ folder.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to your Chyrp administration panel.
4. Click on the Extend tab, and then the Feathers sub tab.
5. Drag it from the Disabled pane to the Enabled pane.

You can now use the feather by navigating to the Write tab and choosing the feather you uploaded.

Modules

Installing modules is quick, easy, and painless with Chyrp. They add extra functionality to Chyrp.

1. Download and unzip the module.
2. Upload the module to the modules/ folder.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to your Chyrp administration panel.
4. Click on the Extend tab and drag it from the Disabled pane to the Enabled pane.

The module is now installed and is ready for action. Keep in mind that some modules may conflict with each other if they do similar tasks. They are marked with red lines between them on the Modules page.

Themes

Chyrp makes applying themes to your blog easy. With a single click you can change the look of your blog.

1. Download and unzip the theme.
2. Upload the theme to the themes/ folder. Make sure that it is contained in it’s own folder.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to your Chyrp administration panel.
4. Click on the Extend tab, and then the Themes sub tab.
5. Click on the screenshot of the theme you just uploaded to apply it to your blog.

Chyrp can even show you what the theme will look like before anyone else sees it. In the Themes sub tab, click on the Preview button below the theme screenshot to see the theme.

Localization

Chyrp is multilingual! If your first language isn’t English, you can apply a new localization to Chyrp to make it speak your language.

1. Download and unzip the localization.
2. Upload the .mo file to the includes/locale/ folder. You don’t need anything else for the translation to work.
3. Open your web browser and navigate to your Chyrp administration panel.
4. Click on the Settings tab, and change the Language option to the language you just uploaded.

-Chyrp is a blogging engine designed to be very lightweight while retaining functionality. It is powered by PHP and has very powerful theme and extension engines, so you can personalize it however you want.The code is well-documented, and it has a very strong structure that’s loosely based on the MVC design pattern.Chyrp is licensed under MIT License.

 

Chyrp Features:

1.High-end open source blogging applications may have all the features you can think of, but you may not need all that. For simple blogs, a lightweight alternative like Chyrp is worth a closer look.

2.Chyrp runs on the PHP/MySQL stack, has a clean interface sprinkled with AJAX, and administration features that you can learn without resorting to a manual (in fact, there is no manual to speak of).

3.Chyrp’s installation procedure is the first sign of how easy to use and elegant this blogging engine is. The supplied installer script does the heavy lifting for you. All you have to do is download and unzip the package, upload the resulting directory to your Web server, then point your browser to the install.php page (e.g. www.webserver/chyrp/install.php) to begin installation. The installation procedure asks you to provide MySQL database connection details, enter general info about your blog, and configure an administrator account.

4.Since simplicity is the key concept of its design, it won’t take you long to figure out how to use Chyrp. The Administrator toolbar at the top of your blog provides links to Chyrp’s main sections. The Write section is where you work on your blog’s content. By default, Chyrp allows you to create blog posts (the Text tab) and pages (the Pages tab), which are useful for adding static content to your blog. For example, if you are maintaining a blog about OpenOffice.org, you might want to create a static page containing information about the project’s history, how to download and install the office suite, or where to get help.

5.Chyrp relies on good old HTML for rich text formatting of both blog entries and pages — a boon for anyone who doesn’t want to learn yet another markup language. When working with blog posts in the Text section, you have a couple of simple yet useful tools for managing content. To access them, click on the More Options link under the Body area. Here you can choose how and when a specific blog post is published using the Status drop-down list. You can, for example, save a post as draft for later editing, or you can limit its visibility to only registered users only. To make a blog post appear above all other posts, you can pin it by ticking the Pinned check box. Chyrp also comes with a handy bookmarklet, which allows you to blog about a currently viewed Web page without leaving it.

6.The default Chyrp package provides only the most basic functionality, but you can extended it via plugins, or feathers in Chyrp’s parlance. For example, the Photo, Quote, Video, and Link feathers can turn your blog into a tumblog, while the Textile, Markdown, and WordPress Formatting feathers add support for alternative markups. The Commenting feather adds a comments system to Chyrp with some fancy features such as Akismet spam protection and an AJAX-based comment reloading mechanism. Tagginator is another must-have feather that adds tagging capabilities to Chyrp.

7.Installing feathers is straightforward, but you have to keep in mind that some feathers are actually modules. For example, the Link and Quote packages are feathers and should be installed in the feathers folder inside your Chyrp installation, while Comments and Tagginator are modules and must be installed in the modules directory. To install a feather, download and unzip it and upload the resulting directory into the feathers directory inside your Chyrp installation. In Chyrp, go to Admin -> Extend -> Feathers and click on the Enable button next to the installed feather. The same procedure works for modules, but you have to copy modules into the modules directory and enable them in the Admin -> Extend -> Modules section.

8.When it comes to managing your blog, Chyrp has everything you need. The Website tab in the Admin -> Setting section allows you to modify your blog’s name and description, enable user registration and set up default groups of users, and specify date format and the number of posts per page. You can tweak your blog feed’s settings, such as trackbacking and pingbacks, under the Syndication tab, while the Routes tab offers you options to enable and configure so-called “clean URLs,” or simple permanent links. The Manage section helps you to keep tabs on your posts, pages, users, and groups. Again, this section is hardly overloaded with features, but it has everything you need to quickly find, edit, and delete content and users.

Major Features of Chyrp

• Extremely lightweight
• Preview mode
• Customize look of URLs, or use the recommended Clean URLs
• Easily add and edit pages
• Save posts as drafts for later editing and publishing
• Easy HTML blog posting
• Tons of modules to add functionality to your blog
• Clean interface with AJAX
• Add comment feather to add a comment system to blog

Chyrp CMS Installation