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Having built Wordpress CMS systems in a variety of scenarios I find it an incredibly frustrating piece of technology. For common framework expectations / patter

Having built Wordpress CMS systems in a variety of scenarios I find it an incredibly frustrating piece of technology. For common framework expectations / patterns in 2016 it feels at least 5-10 years behind. It's difficult to migrate, have multiple environments, deploy, and so much more. In almost every respect I find alternatives such as Craft CMS (php/yii) or Wagtail (Python/Django) vastly superior and much easier to customize. The only reason I find it continues its momentum is that it has word of mouth for managers, mindshare with editors / content managers who know the admin ui well and expect more of the same, and it has a very large plugin/theme ecosystem for people who want to get started very quickly. The problem, especially with some of these themes is that they are almost impossible to extend and maintain and they are very bloated. I find that lately I either choose a flat file CMS for a client (Kirby, Grav) or if its a very simple site I use either Squarespace or Webflow and for other cases I choose Craft CMS, Wagtail or others which need a database backend.

theSpaceOctopus 10y ago
> It's difficult to migrate, have multiple environments, deploy, and so much more. Sorry, that's kind of silly. WordPress can be incredibly frustrating, for sure, but there's a multitude of migration, deployment, and local development options. We use Roots tools exclusively - https://roots.io/ https://roots.io/
- smpetrey 10y ago
  Agreed. I started using Roots in 2015 and never looked back.
nol13 10y ago
Still, if someone asks what CMS to use, and their needs are better met with a CMS vs. [online site generator] or [real web stack], it's hard to recommend something other than Wordpress in good faith. Standard is standard.
hacker_9 10y ago
I don't think you understand what WordPress is about. It's about easily clicking together a blog site like lego, where every feature is just a search away in the plugins section. You could probably recreate everything in python django to work as efficiently as possible, but who cares? It's just work for the sake of work at the end of the day.
CM30 10y ago
To some degree, I'd say the archaicness of WordPress (is that a word?) might be part of why it's so popular. Because it's coded in a way that anyone can (fairly easily) figure out how to code themes or add ons without needing to know a lot about programming. Contrast to many 'better built' frameworks which require you to know more than basic copy and pasting/very old school procedural programming and you've got a system which while less liked by professionals/experts is exactly what your amateur coder or hobbyist wants/can easily get used to. Kind of like why HTML 5 won out over XML in the end. Because one was simple enough to get used to and met average Joe's needs and one was a bit of a pain in the ass that only 'experts' were patient enough to use. So yeah, it doesn't follow a lot of recommended patterns and has an archaic coding style and all that, but it comes with the plus side that it's easier to develop stuff for.
mcbetz 10y ago
Yes, from a content editor perspective, Wordpress is a great choice. Quite a few clients even want their new site based on Wordpress rather than on more heavy weights like Typo3 or Drupal. Wordpress has made many editors more self confident and yes, also interested in what a CMS can do for you (instead of: you needing hours of training to do basic edits). However, this has some consequences: Clients expect that there is a free or cheap plugin that will solve every single problem. And they often install dozens of them to try to solve it themselves. Maintaining a client site after it has been online for more than a few months is often very painful for a developer: plugins bring style overrides, sometimes break your routing, often miss translation. Also, a professional Wordpress instance is far from free: you need ACF Pro for good custom fields, Admin Columns Pro to get a useable backend, Relevanssi Pro for proper search, WP Migrate Pro for migration. And you quickly end up with 500$ for a basic setup. And recurring fees. Yes, there are free alternative, but they are not always reliable (I so often had issues with Wordmove migrations...) As nice as Wordpress is for the editor, it is no fun for the developer and designer: you can get separation of concerns (and Twig templating) with Timber but its nowhere near supporting all functions (password protection does not work, for example). Also, no underlying framework makes creating and working with plugins guesswork. PHP is a good choice for CMS, but Craft (Yii) or the excellent open source Bolt CMS (Symfony, Twig) bring joy to all involved - editors, designers, coders.

theSpaceOctopus 10y ago

> It's difficult to migrate, have multiple environments, deploy, and so much more. Sorry, that's kind of silly. WordPress can be incredibly frustrating, for sure, but there's a multitude of migration, deployment, and local development options. We use Roots tools exclusively - https://roots.io/ https://roots.io/

smpetrey 10y ago
Agreed. I started using Roots in 2015 and never looked back.

nol13 10y ago

Still, if someone asks what CMS to use, and their needs are better met with a CMS vs. [online site generator] or [real web stack], it's hard to recommend something other than Wordpress in good faith. Standard is standard.

hacker_9 10y ago

I don't think you understand what WordPress is about. It's about easily clicking together a blog site like lego, where every feature is just a search away in the plugins section. You could probably recreate everything in python django to work as efficiently as possible, but who cares? It's just work for the sake of work at the end of the day.

CM30 10y ago

To some degree, I'd say the archaicness of WordPress (is that a word?) might be part of why it's so popular. Because it's coded in a way that anyone can (fairly easily) figure out how to code themes or add ons without needing to know a lot about programming. Contrast to many 'better built' frameworks which require you to know more than basic copy and pasting/very old school procedural programming and you've got a system which while less liked by professionals/experts is exactly what your amateur coder or hobbyist wants/can easily get used to. Kind of like why HTML 5 won out over XML in the end. Because one was simple enough to get used to and met average Joe's needs and one was a bit of a pain in the ass that only 'experts' were patient enough to use. So yeah, it doesn't follow a lot of recommended patterns and has an archaic coding style and all that, but it comes with the plus side that it's easier to develop stuff for.

mcbetz 10y ago

Yes, from a content editor perspective, Wordpress is a great choice. Quite a few clients even want their new site based on Wordpress rather than on more heavy weights like Typo3 or Drupal. Wordpress has made many editors more self confident and yes, also interested in what a CMS can do for you (instead of: you needing hours of training to do basic edits). However, this has some consequences: Clients expect that there is a free or cheap plugin that will solve every single problem. And they often install dozens of them to try to solve it themselves. Maintaining a client site after it has been online for more than a few months is often very painful for a developer: plugins bring style overrides, sometimes break your routing, often miss translation. Also, a professional Wordpress instance is far from free: you need ACF Pro for good custom fields, Admin Columns Pro to get a useable backend, Relevanssi Pro for proper search, WP Migrate Pro for migration. And you quickly end up with 500$ for a basic setup. And recurring fees. Yes, there are free alternative, but they are not always reliable (I so often had issues with Wordmove migrations...) As nice as Wordpress is for the editor, it is no fun for the developer and designer: you can get separation of concerns (and Twig templating) with Timber but its nowhere near supporting all functions (password protection does not work, for example). Also, no underlying framework makes creating and working with plugins guesswork. PHP is a good choice for CMS, but Craft (Yii) or the excellent open source Bolt CMS (Symfony, Twig) bring joy to all involved - editors, designers, coders.