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WordPress is easy to start using, is fun and rewarding, makes people feel they've managed to get something done, works out of the box. That is what competing s

WordPress is easy to start using, is fun and rewarding, makes people feel they've managed to get something done, works out of the box. That is what competing systems have to beat. I do think that our own django CMS https://django-cms.org https://django-cms.org is a better system than WordPress - more elegant, more secure, more extensible and scalable. But it's not enough to be proud of our beautiful internals, we have to give the ordinary, non-expert user a good experience too, and make them feel in charge of the system from the start. That's why we admire WordPress and want to beat it (and who would want to beat something that they sneer at - it seems a low ambition!).

mgkimsal 10y ago
> WordPress is easy to start using For many people it's "log in to cpnael, press the wordpress button, done". this is what other systems need to beat, and... without the cooperation of major hosting companies, they won't. get install scripts in to control panels like virtualmin to get rolling on adoption.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  We have a Django installer in Virtualmin (maybe only in the commercial version, but I think we tend to put "developer" tools into the OSS version, as well...so it might be in all versions; there's 100, or so, installers in the commercial version and only a handful in the GPL version). I was unaware of Django CMS, and no one has requested it, as far as I know...we pretty much build what our customers ask for. We welcome community contributions of installers, and those always go into the OSS version of Virtualmin, as long as the person is willing to help maintain it long-term, and it is generally usable on a wide variety of our supported operating systems without too much effort (e.g. it works without needing a super new version of the language). Adding such an installer does put the app in front of about 100,000 users (which is roughly our current installation count of Virtualmin GPL), so that's cool and probably is a useful use of time/effort for someone wanting to make a web application more visible and more widely used. We're working on better support for multiple versions of Python, as that's also a problem for more widespread adoption of Python apps (and Ruby, and Node, and Perl, etc.). Most rely on very, ridiculously, new versions of the language, whereas PHP apps almost always have a low barrier to entry that matches what an old version of CentOS shipped with. So, users don't just need to install the application or framework, they also need to install a personal version of the language it is written in. That's a bridge too far, for the vast majority of beginners. We already support multiple PHP versions, as that was a priority for many of our users, but we're just getting started looking into stuff like rbenv, plenv, pyenv, etc. for private versions of languages. The problem of needing very new versions of the language currently leads to a lot of our supported non-PHP apps being unsupported on the most popular systems, without some extra hoops to jump through; CentOS 6, which still has more active installs than anything else, can't run many modern Ruby, Python, or Perl applications, without installing a newer version of the language. SCL provides newer versions of some of those, so it's not insurmountable, but it's still a leap for many non-technical users. Anyway, it's worth being aware that using the latest and greatest language features is fun, but it's also limiting reach. (Even once we automate all of this for other languages than PHP, Virtualmin is still running on a tiny number of the servers in the wild, relatively speaking.)
  - mgkimsal 10y ago
    I've got the regular virtualmin (free) and I don't see it in there. :( Oh - yes, there's a "Django" installer, but not the Django CMS I was referring to. Yes, it's a small number, but I'm doing my best to help grow it with my client base, and then their client base, etc. Thank you for the work you all do on Virtualmin.
    - SwellJoe 10y ago
      The number of people using any non-PHP apps is very, very, very, small, so it just doesn't get a lot of attention from us or users. One of our favorite customers is a developer in the Django community, so we added things at his request, but I think he uses a custom deployment and so our stuff doesn't get a lot of testing even from the fellow who requested it and helped us develop it. I would like to put more resources into it, but it's a chicken and egg problem. No customers want it, so it doesn't get a lot of attention, so people who do want Django support see that we're not very serious about it and don't use it or contribute to it. I'm glad to hear Virtualmin is working well for you. If you have problems with Python stuff in Virtualmin, feel free to let us know. The squeaky wheel gets the grease...and not many people squeak about Python/Django support in Virtualmin. As far as I can tell there are literally thousands of times more WordPress users than Django users (just to put it into perspective).
- joshkpeterson 10y ago
  What about flat file CMS like Kirby? Just upload your files.
GFischer 10y ago
People I know who have used Django praise it, but WordPress's ecosystem is in another league entirely. Real-world example: I needed to build a restaurant website in as little time as possible. A Google search for Wordpress Restaurant template gave me everything I needed (I went with one from ThemeForest). The same search replacing Wordpress with Django doesn't return anything relevant :( (it does give me several paid ads for Wix and other site builders). Edit: mgkimsal also has a point. It's ridiculously easy to get Wordpress up and running with most hosting providers. Edit2: the article mentions the setup issues. Docker containers sound like a way to overcome that one, but the ecosystem barrier will remain.
- SwellJoe 10y ago
  Docker containers are not a way to overcome difficult installation for the kind of users deploying WordPress en masse. They're (still) often on shared hosting, in a lot of cases, using whatever control panel their host provides, and not only don't know how to use Docker, they don't have the capability to do so on the server. Even most of the folks with a VPS aren't on board the Docker hype train just yet. (Docker is cool and all, but it's not how people outside of our bleeding edge bubble are doing things, yet.)
  - diimdeep 10y ago
    Totally agree with you

mgkimsal 10y ago

> WordPress is easy to start using For many people it's "log in to cpnael, press the wordpress button, done". this is what other systems need to beat, and... without the cooperation of major hosting companies, they won't. get install scripts in to control panels like virtualmin to get rolling on adoption.

SwellJoe 10y ago
We have a Django installer in Virtualmin (maybe only in the commercial version, but I think we tend to put "developer" tools into the OSS version, as well...so it might be in all versions; there's 100, or so, installers in the commercial version and only a handful in the GPL version). I was unaware of Django CMS, and no one has requested it, as far as I know...we pretty much build what our customers ask for. We welcome community contributions of installers, and those always go into the OSS version of Virtualmin, as long as the person is willing to help maintain it long-term, and it is generally usable on a wide variety of our supported operating systems without too much effort (e.g. it works without needing a super new version of the language). Adding such an installer does put the app in front of about 100,000 users (which is roughly our current installation count of Virtualmin GPL), so that's cool and probably is a useful use of time/effort for someone wanting to make a web application more visible and more widely used. We're working on better support for multiple versions of Python, as that's also a problem for more widespread adoption of Python apps (and Ruby, and Node, and Perl, etc.). Most rely on very, ridiculously, new versions of the language, whereas PHP apps almost always have a low barrier to entry that matches what an old version of CentOS shipped with. So, users don't just need to install the application or framework, they also need to install a personal version of the language it is written in. That's a bridge too far, for the vast majority of beginners. We already support multiple PHP versions, as that was a priority for many of our users, but we're just getting started looking into stuff like rbenv, plenv, pyenv, etc. for private versions of languages. The problem of needing very new versions of the language currently leads to a lot of our supported non-PHP apps being unsupported on the most popular systems, without some extra hoops to jump through; CentOS 6, which still has more active installs than anything else, can't run many modern Ruby, Python, or Perl applications, without installing a newer version of the language. SCL provides newer versions of some of those, so it's not insurmountable, but it's still a leap for many non-technical users. Anyway, it's worth being aware that using the latest and greatest language features is fun, but it's also limiting reach. (Even once we automate all of this for other languages than PHP, Virtualmin is still running on a tiny number of the servers in the wild, relatively speaking.)
- mgkimsal 10y ago
  I've got the regular virtualmin (free) and I don't see it in there. :( Oh - yes, there's a "Django" installer, but not the Django CMS I was referring to. Yes, it's a small number, but I'm doing my best to help grow it with my client base, and then their client base, etc. Thank you for the work you all do on Virtualmin.
  - SwellJoe 10y ago
    The number of people using any non-PHP apps is very, very, very, small, so it just doesn't get a lot of attention from us or users. One of our favorite customers is a developer in the Django community, so we added things at his request, but I think he uses a custom deployment and so our stuff doesn't get a lot of testing even from the fellow who requested it and helped us develop it. I would like to put more resources into it, but it's a chicken and egg problem. No customers want it, so it doesn't get a lot of attention, so people who do want Django support see that we're not very serious about it and don't use it or contribute to it. I'm glad to hear Virtualmin is working well for you. If you have problems with Python stuff in Virtualmin, feel free to let us know. The squeaky wheel gets the grease...and not many people squeak about Python/Django support in Virtualmin. As far as I can tell there are literally thousands of times more WordPress users than Django users (just to put it into perspective).
joshkpeterson 10y ago
What about flat file CMS like Kirby? Just upload your files.

GFischer 10y ago

People I know who have used Django praise it, but WordPress's ecosystem is in another league entirely. Real-world example: I needed to build a restaurant website in as little time as possible. A Google search for Wordpress Restaurant template gave me everything I needed (I went with one from ThemeForest). The same search replacing Wordpress with Django doesn't return anything relevant :( (it does give me several paid ads for Wix and other site builders). Edit: mgkimsal also has a point. It's ridiculously easy to get Wordpress up and running with most hosting providers. Edit2: the article mentions the setup issues. Docker containers sound like a way to overcome that one, but the ecosystem barrier will remain.

SwellJoe 10y ago
Docker containers are not a way to overcome difficult installation for the kind of users deploying WordPress en masse. They're (still) often on shared hosting, in a lot of cases, using whatever control panel their host provides, and not only don't know how to use Docker, they don't have the capability to do so on the server. Even most of the folks with a VPS aren't on board the Docker hype train just yet. (Docker is cool and all, but it's not how people outside of our bleeding edge bubble are doing things, yet.)
- diimdeep 10y ago
  Totally agree with you