Perch is 8 today!

When we launched Perch, it was a small drop-in content editor. Our aim was to enable content editing of small sites. To solve the problem where you had developed a site for a client as a static HTML brochure site and, at the final hour, they wanted to be able to edit some of the content. We have developed the product in many ways since those early days - however a big use case for Perch is still that initial one. Perch is still a fantastic solution for editing content on a static site, and despite all of the features Perch now has, we are proud that the product can still be used in that very simple way. Add a Perch Region. Reload the page. Edit content in the Control Panel.

The Perch 1 UI was very simple

You can see the entire update history for Perch. Here are some of our favourite updates!

May 2010 - the Perch API and Pages App

The original Perch was for editing content, not creating new pages. People wanted to add new pages. Perch 1.5 added the Perch API and the ability to add new pages as a separate App. The API meant we were able to start creating our official Add-ons for Perch, and give you the functionality to do the same.

November 2010 - multi-level Undo and Save as Draft

We added multi-level Undo and Save as Draft in Perch 1.6. It was a much requested feature although we are still unsure as to how often anyone really uses it.

March 2012 - the final release of Perch 1

The final release of Perch 1 was Perch 1.8.4 in March 2012. There are still a significant number of sites running this version of Perch!

July 2012 - Perch 2 is launched

Perch 2 was a major release for Perch. We integrated the separate Pages App, making page creation a core part of the product. We were moving away from our content editor roots although we made sure that Perch could still be used in that very simple way.

Perch 2 integrated the Pages App

June 2014 - The Assets App

We added the first iteration of the Assets functionality in Perch in June 2014 with Perch 2.5.

October 2014 - Perch Runway is launched

People love Perch and want to be able to use it for all of their projects. This leaves us with a problem, as we have many customers who love the simple nature of Perch. To add the features that customers with more complex needs have, we risk making Perch too complex. Our solution is a new product - Perch Runway. It uses the same template language and functions as Perch yet takes a more typical front controller approach. It’s a developer friendly version of the product - and means we can move forward adding more complex features to Runway, keeping Perch simple.

Runway is also a simple upgrade from Perch, if you site grows and needs change, you can upgrade the site to get that functionality.

The Runway Changelog tells the story of Runway.

March 2015 - Blocks!

The Blocks functionality was added in Perch 2.8. This means that you can create multiple sub-templates that content editors can choose from when building up a page.

April 2016 - Perch Shop

When we launched Perch 8 years ago, we had never imagined that we would be implementing a full-scale e-commerce system for it. Yet, here we are with Perch Shop. Designed for Runway, but also capable of selling a few products from a regular Perch site.

March 2017 - Perch & Runway 3

In March this year we shipped Perch and Runway version 3. This release was free to all holders of a version 2 license for the software and includes a redesigned UI and many aditions and fixes requested by Perchers. It also lays the groundwork for some pretty exciting things to come in the future.

Also, with Perch and Runway 3, came the first version that had a free download trial. You now don’t need to buy a license to try out Perch or Runway and to see which product is best for your needs.

What is next?

On that note, we have so many plans for Perch and for Runway, those plans rely on the support we get from the people we build this product for - our Perchers. We are still proudly independent and self-funded. Your license fees directly go to making better software. Thank you for your continued support of what we do, we really can’t do it without you.