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I've been building websites on WordPress for 15+ years, run a WordPress agency and have many clients who come to us specifically asking for us to use WordPress.

I've been building websites on WordPress for 15+ years, run a WordPress agency and have many clients who come to us specifically asking for us to use WordPress. I'm seriously considering moving to something else because we use the WP Engine plugin Advanced Custom Fields (pro version) and him pulling the free version from the plugin repo in a hissy fit has made me seriously concerned about the stability of the ecosystem if one guy can do something like that in a fit of pique.

shiftpgdn 2y ago
[flagged]
- mjburgess 2y ago
  Ah yes, the specific structure of WPE's ownership is sufficient reason to move away from them -- but the behaviour and structure of WP's ownership isnt...
  - shiftpgdn 2y ago
    Yes? There are without exaggeration 1000+ companies offering WordPress hosting. It's a replaceable product. Nothing WPEngine offers is unique or special. WordPress itself is an entire ecosystem.
- frereubu 2y ago
  This is far too dismissive - I'm guessing you don't run a WordPress agency. We don't use WP Engine for hosting, we only use the ACF plugin. ACF is not "very easily replaced" because we've built the site data structures around it and we'd have to completely rearchitect the sites - at our own cost. "Moving our sites" is not easy either because we have 100+ sites, each of which would involve DNS updates (which we often have to walk our clients through because they don't understand DNS at all) and a complete reconfiguration of our build / deploment process. I don't really understand the motivation behind this comment.
- dageshi 2y ago
  What do you replace ACF with?
- bdcravens 2y ago
  What hosts do you recommend that offer built-in development/staging environments? (one of WPEngine's selling points)
  - frereubu 2y ago
    On the basis that this isn't an entirely rhetorical question, two I know of are Kinsta and Pressable. We use Pagely, but I have some hand-rolled Bash scripts which perform the same function.
    - bdcravens 2y ago
      Thanks, it was intended as a bona fide question. Our company does use WP Engine, and while we could total insource it (we already manage our bread and butter app), to do so I'd have to recreate the staging (and ability to push to production) ability (already have some ideas on how to accomplish this easily), but I'd rather save the engineering cycles for our actual product.
evantbyrne 2y ago
Unless you're at a theme chop shop, then you might as well move onto greener pastures. There are so many alternatives now for website control panels like Wagtail, Payload, and Craft CMS.
- frereubu 2y ago
  No, mostly ground-up custom built themes. I've tried Craft and found it pretty convoluted (althought that might just be familiarity), but will be looking at Wagtail. Still hoping that WP can pull out of the tailspin because it's going to be a huge headache to switch.
bovermyer 2y ago
I'm curious what you'd consider moving to. Managed Wix/Squarespace? Ghost, maybe? I honestly haven't dug into that world in many years, I don't know what it looks like these days.
- frereubu 2y ago
  Craft and Wagtail are the two I've heard of as WordPress replacements. In our sector (nonprofits) Drupal has too much of an (mostly undeserved, now) reputation as being very hard to use. I found Craft a bit too convoluted (as I mention in another comment, perhaps just due to unfamiliarity). Interested in Wagtail but that would mean a switch from PHP to Python. Not a deal-breaker but a bit of a hump to get over. Wagtail also used to be a bit too beholden to Torchbox (a UK agency) for my tastes - I think they started the project - but looks like that's shifted a bit in terms of the core team.
  - 65 2y ago
    At my job one of the sites I work on, a large government agency you have heard of, uses Drupal. And honestly? I like Drupal more than Wordpress as a developer. But, I will say, Drupal is definitely confusing at first with all its nodes and entities and content types and poor documentation and so on. But on the other hand, it doesn't really force you into anything. You can build almost anything with Drupal, which I think makes it a great CMS.
    - tehbeard 2y ago
      There is a ... version? distro? "Drupal CMS" that seems to be aimed at being simpler / setup out of the box than regular Drupal. https://new.drupal.org/drupal-cms https://new.drupal.org/drupal-cms Going to look into it in the next few weeks as a possible alternative.
    - frereubu 2y ago
      I quite like Drupal too, but I know that clients find it confusing (or at least they used to the last time I spoke to an ex-Drupal client). We find people find WordPress much easier to reason about intitively, although that might well be familiarity.

shiftpgdn 2y ago

[flagged]

mjburgess 2y ago
Ah yes, the specific structure of WPE's ownership is sufficient reason to move away from them -- but the behaviour and structure of WP's ownership isnt...
- shiftpgdn 2y ago
  Yes? There are without exaggeration 1000+ companies offering WordPress hosting. It's a replaceable product. Nothing WPEngine offers is unique or special. WordPress itself is an entire ecosystem.
frereubu 2y ago
This is far too dismissive - I'm guessing you don't run a WordPress agency. We don't use WP Engine for hosting, we only use the ACF plugin. ACF is not "very easily replaced" because we've built the site data structures around it and we'd have to completely rearchitect the sites - at our own cost. "Moving our sites" is not easy either because we have 100+ sites, each of which would involve DNS updates (which we often have to walk our clients through because they don't understand DNS at all) and a complete reconfiguration of our build / deploment process. I don't really understand the motivation behind this comment.
dageshi 2y ago
What do you replace ACF with?
bdcravens 2y ago
What hosts do you recommend that offer built-in development/staging environments? (one of WPEngine's selling points)
- frereubu 2y ago
  On the basis that this isn't an entirely rhetorical question, two I know of are Kinsta and Pressable. We use Pagely, but I have some hand-rolled Bash scripts which perform the same function.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    Thanks, it was intended as a bona fide question. Our company does use WP Engine, and while we could total insource it (we already manage our bread and butter app), to do so I'd have to recreate the staging (and ability to push to production) ability (already have some ideas on how to accomplish this easily), but I'd rather save the engineering cycles for our actual product.

evantbyrne 2y ago

Unless you're at a theme chop shop, then you might as well move onto greener pastures. There are so many alternatives now for website control panels like Wagtail, Payload, and Craft CMS.

frereubu 2y ago
No, mostly ground-up custom built themes. I've tried Craft and found it pretty convoluted (althought that might just be familiarity), but will be looking at Wagtail. Still hoping that WP can pull out of the tailspin because it's going to be a huge headache to switch.

bovermyer 2y ago

I'm curious what you'd consider moving to. Managed Wix/Squarespace? Ghost, maybe? I honestly haven't dug into that world in many years, I don't know what it looks like these days.

frereubu 2y ago
Craft and Wagtail are the two I've heard of as WordPress replacements. In our sector (nonprofits) Drupal has too much of an (mostly undeserved, now) reputation as being very hard to use. I found Craft a bit too convoluted (as I mention in another comment, perhaps just due to unfamiliarity). Interested in Wagtail but that would mean a switch from PHP to Python. Not a deal-breaker but a bit of a hump to get over. Wagtail also used to be a bit too beholden to Torchbox (a UK agency) for my tastes - I think they started the project - but looks like that's shifted a bit in terms of the core team.
- 65 2y ago
  At my job one of the sites I work on, a large government agency you have heard of, uses Drupal. And honestly? I like Drupal more than Wordpress as a developer. But, I will say, Drupal is definitely confusing at first with all its nodes and entities and content types and poor documentation and so on. But on the other hand, it doesn't really force you into anything. You can build almost anything with Drupal, which I think makes it a great CMS.
  - tehbeard 2y ago
    There is a ... version? distro? "Drupal CMS" that seems to be aimed at being simpler / setup out of the box than regular Drupal. https://new.drupal.org/drupal-cms https://new.drupal.org/drupal-cms Going to look into it in the next few weeks as a possible alternative.
  - frereubu 2y ago
    I quite like Drupal too, but I know that clients find it confusing (or at least they used to the last time I spoke to an ex-Drupal client). We find people find WordPress much easier to reason about intitively, although that might well be familiarity.