Does Flowershow Lock In Your Content or Files?

Updated

No. Flowershow keeps your content as plain-text files in a folder you control, and the site describes itself as "infrastructure, not a silo." Your Markdown, HTML, and asset files stay portable and Git-friendly, so you can keep editing them locally or move them to another tool. The one caveat: the hosted features that make the site feel finished — custom domains, full-text search, and similar Premium options — are tied to the Flowershow service, not to your files.

What "no lock-in" means in practice

Flowershow publishes from a folder rather than importing your writing into a proprietary database. The page evidence describes the model directly: "Your files stay plain text — portable, Git-friendly, no lock-in. Flowershow is infrastructure, not a silo."

That means:

  • Your source files remain yours. Markdown (.md, .mdx), HTML, and supporting assets sit in a normal folder structure.
  • You can keep working elsewhere. The same files open in Obsidian, a code editor, or any other Markdown tool.
  • Git works normally. Because everything is plain text, version control and backups behave as they would for any text project.
  • Publishing doesn't require a build step. You point Flowershow at the folder and it serves a real website, not a file link.

A concrete example

Suppose your folder looks like this:

my-site/
  index.md
  notes.md
  roadmap.canvas
  report/
    index.html
    style.css
    chart.js
  images/
    cover.png

If you later decide to stop using Flowershow, the .md files are still readable Markdown, the .html file still opens in a browser, and style.css and chart.js still work with it. Nothing has been converted into a format only Flowershow can read.

What stays tied to the service

Portability of files and portability of hosting are different things. Based on the site's own descriptions:

Element Portable? Notes
Markdown / MDX source Yes Plain text, editable anywhere
HTML, CSS, JS, data files Yes Served as written; relative links work
Images, PDFs, CSV, JSON Yes Served as files at their own URLs
Obsidian Canvas (.canvas) Yes, as a file Renders as a diagram page on Flowershow
Themes and site navigation Partly Applied by Flowershow; your CSS/Tailwind customizations travel with you
Custom domain, favicon, social image No Premium hosting features
Full-text search No Premium hosting feature

So the content itself is not locked in, but the polished presentation layer — domain, search, hosted rendering — depends on staying with Flowershow.

How to check portability before committing

  1. Keep your source in one folder and treat that folder as the source of truth, not the published site.
  2. Put it under Git (or any backup) so you always have an independent copy.
  3. Test the exit path once: open a few .md files in another editor and confirm links, images, and code blocks still make sense.
  4. Note which features you rely on — if search or a custom domain is essential, plan for how you'd replace it elsewhere.

If those steps are comfortable, Flowershow functions as a publishing layer over files you already own rather than a destination your content can't leave.