I started with php and msql back in ... 1996. Then in 98 took a job and much was perl. This was a web agency, and there was one client running Oracle on a sparc (IIRC), and some folks were tested out 'asp' and using MSSQL 6.5 (again IIRC - 7 wasn't out until later). But for those of us using perl... we were forced in to flat files and/or dbm files for our data storage needs.

I tried to ask for msql or mysql, but were told 'no', that they were 'too heavy' for what we needed, so the folks doing perl were pushed back to the dark ages. We also weren't allowed to use 'shtml' - basic server side processing for things like 'include' to include common footers. Whenever we needed to make a footer change we had to write multiple search/replace scripts across dozens of client sites. The new 'asp' folks lauded this over us for a while with "look how advanced asp and Microsoft is - MS really gets the web". I showed what I'd been doing with PHP for 2-3 years at that point, with includes and more. But "well, that's not really powerful enough". Kept moving the goalposts.

tldr - there were many options for more advanced stuff than flat files back in the earliest web days, but often people were hamstrung by short sighted tech decisions made by people who were not responsible for actually delivering the work. has much changed in the past 25+ years? ;)