Meridian

Install the platform (Meridian Studio)

Meridian Studio is a complete website platform. It does not need WordPress, a

MySQL database, or any subscription.

Requirements

  • PHP 8.0 or newer
  • The pdo_sqlite and gd extensions
  • Somewhere to upload files

That is all. No Composer, no Node, no build step. Cheap shared hosting is

usually fine.

Install

  1. Download and unzip meridian-standalone.zip
  2. Upload the contents to your web root — usually public_html or www
  3. Make the storage folder writable:

chmod -R 775 storage
  1. Visit https://yourdomain.com/install.php
  2. Fill in your details. Tick install demo content to have something to

look at.

  1. Delete install.php when it finishes

The dashboard will keep warning you until that file is gone. Anyone who finds

it can see your setup screen.

Command line instead


php install.php you@studio.com yourpassword "Your Studio" --demo

If pretty URLs do not work

The included .htaccess handles this on Apache. On nginx, add:


location / { try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string; }
location ~ ^/(core|themes)/ { deny all; }
location ~ ^/storage/.*\.sqlite { deny all; }

Backing up

Your entire site is two things: storage/meridian.sqlite and

storage/uploads/. Copy both and you have a complete backup. Nothing else

matters.