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I don't see network effects or path dependence keeping it at the top. In fact its share of the universe of free open source CMS installs, has I believe been inc

I don't see network effects or path dependence keeping it at the top. In fact its share of the universe of free open source CMS installs, has I believe been increasing in recent years. I think there is a shared experience out there that when you put it up against alternatives such as Joomla, Drupal, ModX, and to some extent even Magento that it's the only CMS you can ship to a client without having to field calls all day on how to use the thing. Plus, the ease of simple templating and plugins available allow small shops to deliver products with which they can actually make a profit. I believe this reason alone is a big driver of WordPress recommendations. I'll also mention that my comment is from the point of view of design shops, contractors, and freelancers. If someone is building, maintaing or planning a free standing product website that will have engineering resources dedicated to it then yes, there are probably better alternatives.

jacques_chester 13y ago
Wordpress is not a general purpose CMS and requires no configuration out of the box to do its basic task: publish a blog. It's a different genre of application from Drupal, Joomla et al, so they can't really be compared. The in-genre competitors are systems like Habari, TextPattern or Serendipity. Nobody uses them. Why? Because nobody uses them. Tell me again about how it's not network effects or path dependency.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  well, some people don't use them because there's a limited ecosystem of plugins and themes. While some people might say "i wouldn't use X because no one uses it", most people I know who make those decisions aren't as general, and will specifically point to themes/plugins/books and community support as the reasons to choose one tool over another. Those are the net effects of having a large network of users, hence the network effect you point out (and I agree with). Just people I know and meet won't be so general in their rationalization.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    I'm confused, are you agreeing or disagreeing? It seems like you've placed a bob each way.
    - mgkimsal 13y ago
      sorry - was agreeing, but I don't think people justify it by saying "I use it because everyone else does". The network effect has real benefits (docs, books, themes, plugins, etc), and that's why people would say they use it, not simply "everyone else uses it". 'twas late when I wrote it, now it's too early to think straight :)
- ereckers 13y ago
  Ok. I read your last sentence of, "At this point it's network effects and path dependence that keeps it at the top." as still alluding to PHP and cheap hosts as being responsible for WordPress's current position. As for me putting WordPress into a basket with Drupal, Joomla, Modx, and the like; the reality is that WordPress is being used as a CMS. It wasn't built for that, and this is distasteful to many here, but that's what it is now being used for for a majority of its new installs. Install WordPress, create custom post types, create meta fields, and tie it all together with posts 2 posts plugins, and you're well on your way to a website with some basic many to many and one to many relationships. Habari, TextPattern and Serendipity look like purely blogging platforms, but if they're better, I hope to start hearing about them in the near future.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Oh I realise that Wordpress is being used as a CMS. People write some fairly amazing plugins to browbeat it into being all sorts of things. (BuddyPress, anyone?) My point is that Drupal out of the box requires a lot more configuration simply to something, anything, that an end user can understand. It continues to reveal a very large control surface which, as you correctly point out, is confusing to people who just want to know how to edit some pages. Drupal hands you the toolbox and expects you to work out what you want to build. Wordpress hands you a chair and says "here, sit on this". > Habari, TextPattern and Serendipity look like purely blogging platforms, but if they're better, I hope to start hearing about them in the near future. If you haven't heard of them before, it seems safe to assume that you won't hear much about them in future.
  - VintageCool 13y ago
    I've seen people using Wordpress to power a high-traffic REST API.
- maratd 13y ago
  > It's a different genre of application from Drupal, Joomla et al, so they can't really be compared. This is simply not true. As someone who has to deal with WordPress on a daily basis, that sentence simply doesn't hold water. I have dealt with large shops built on WordPress (WooCommerce) and massive sites that have nothing to do with blogging. By adding custom post types in the last major version, WordPress became a full-fledged CMS. At this point, the blogging functionality is secondary.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    Emacs can be used to read usenet, participate in IRC, track time, debug remote lisp instances and play games. At this point, the text editing functionality is secondary.
    - maratd 13y ago
      You're not following my train of thought. What defines a piece of software is not its feature set, but how it is actually used. I am seeing real world usage of WordPress as a full-blown CMS. I am seeing it all the time. Are you seeing something else?
      - jacques_chester 13y ago
        > What defines a piece of software is not its feature set, but the feature set that is actually used. I think what defines it is the contours of its design. That you can whack a towball on a Ferrari and pull a boat doesn't make the Ferrari a tow truck. It's still a car, it still accelerates like a car, out of the dealership it is a car. It can be modified into other things. It is still a car. > I am seeing real world usage of WordPress as a full-blown CMS. I am seeing it all the time. Are you seeing something else? I am seeing real world usage of Wordpress as a full-blown blogging engine. In fact that's what I've seen for the past decade.
chc 13y ago
There are a lot of people out there who could write a CMS that's as easy to use as WordPress, and which is as easy to write plug-ins and templates for. But nobody's really trying to beat WordPress at its own game because the network effects are too strong — even if you make it ridiculously easy to write themes in your non-WordPress CMS, WordPress already has thousands that are already written and an army of programers dedicated to churning out more. It will always be easier to find a WordPress theme than one for anything else.
- ereckers 13y ago
  A lot of the more attractive themes at say Themeforest for instance are simply HTML, CSS, and jquery. At this point you're only constricted by the ease of templating whichever CMS/thing you're using, whether WordPress, Drupal, Expression Engine etc.. I still think WordPress does a good job, better/best job even and that's why it's currently king of the user base. However, the Internet is fickle and people will bail for something better at the drop of a hat, network effects or not.

jacques_chester 13y ago

Wordpress is not a general purpose CMS and requires no configuration out of the box to do its basic task: publish a blog. It's a different genre of application from Drupal, Joomla et al, so they can't really be compared. The in-genre competitors are systems like Habari, TextPattern or Serendipity. Nobody uses them. Why? Because nobody uses them. Tell me again about how it's not network effects or path dependency.

mgkimsal 13y ago
well, some people don't use them because there's a limited ecosystem of plugins and themes. While some people might say "i wouldn't use X because no one uses it", most people I know who make those decisions aren't as general, and will specifically point to themes/plugins/books and community support as the reasons to choose one tool over another. Those are the net effects of having a large network of users, hence the network effect you point out (and I agree with). Just people I know and meet won't be so general in their rationalization.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  I'm confused, are you agreeing or disagreeing? It seems like you've placed a bob each way.
  - mgkimsal 13y ago
    sorry - was agreeing, but I don't think people justify it by saying "I use it because everyone else does". The network effect has real benefits (docs, books, themes, plugins, etc), and that's why people would say they use it, not simply "everyone else uses it". 'twas late when I wrote it, now it's too early to think straight :)
ereckers 13y ago
Ok. I read your last sentence of, "At this point it's network effects and path dependence that keeps it at the top." as still alluding to PHP and cheap hosts as being responsible for WordPress's current position. As for me putting WordPress into a basket with Drupal, Joomla, Modx, and the like; the reality is that WordPress is being used as a CMS. It wasn't built for that, and this is distasteful to many here, but that's what it is now being used for for a majority of its new installs. Install WordPress, create custom post types, create meta fields, and tie it all together with posts 2 posts plugins, and you're well on your way to a website with some basic many to many and one to many relationships. Habari, TextPattern and Serendipity look like purely blogging platforms, but if they're better, I hope to start hearing about them in the near future.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Oh I realise that Wordpress is being used as a CMS. People write some fairly amazing plugins to browbeat it into being all sorts of things. (BuddyPress, anyone?) My point is that Drupal out of the box requires a lot more configuration simply to something, anything, that an end user can understand. It continues to reveal a very large control surface which, as you correctly point out, is confusing to people who just want to know how to edit some pages. Drupal hands you the toolbox and expects you to work out what you want to build. Wordpress hands you a chair and says "here, sit on this". > Habari, TextPattern and Serendipity look like purely blogging platforms, but if they're better, I hope to start hearing about them in the near future. If you haven't heard of them before, it seems safe to assume that you won't hear much about them in future.
- VintageCool 13y ago
  I've seen people using Wordpress to power a high-traffic REST API.
maratd 13y ago
> It's a different genre of application from Drupal, Joomla et al, so they can't really be compared. This is simply not true. As someone who has to deal with WordPress on a daily basis, that sentence simply doesn't hold water. I have dealt with large shops built on WordPress (WooCommerce) and massive sites that have nothing to do with blogging. By adding custom post types in the last major version, WordPress became a full-fledged CMS. At this point, the blogging functionality is secondary.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  Emacs can be used to read usenet, participate in IRC, track time, debug remote lisp instances and play games. At this point, the text editing functionality is secondary.
  - maratd 13y ago
    You're not following my train of thought. What defines a piece of software is not its feature set, but how it is actually used. I am seeing real world usage of WordPress as a full-blown CMS. I am seeing it all the time. Are you seeing something else?
    - jacques_chester 13y ago
      > What defines a piece of software is not its feature set, but the feature set that is actually used. I think what defines it is the contours of its design. That you can whack a towball on a Ferrari and pull a boat doesn't make the Ferrari a tow truck. It's still a car, it still accelerates like a car, out of the dealership it is a car. It can be modified into other things. It is still a car. > I am seeing real world usage of WordPress as a full-blown CMS. I am seeing it all the time. Are you seeing something else? I am seeing real world usage of Wordpress as a full-blown blogging engine. In fact that's what I've seen for the past decade.

chc 13y ago

There are a lot of people out there who could write a CMS that's as easy to use as WordPress, and which is as easy to write plug-ins and templates for. But nobody's really trying to beat WordPress at its own game because the network effects are too strong — even if you make it ridiculously easy to write themes in your non-WordPress CMS, WordPress already has thousands that are already written and an army of programers dedicated to churning out more. It will always be easier to find a WordPress theme than one for anything else.

ereckers 13y ago
A lot of the more attractive themes at say Themeforest for instance are simply HTML, CSS, and jquery. At this point you're only constricted by the ease of templating whichever CMS/thing you're using, whether WordPress, Drupal, Expression Engine etc.. I still think WordPress does a good job, better/best job even and that's why it's currently king of the user base. However, the Internet is fickle and people will bail for something better at the drop of a hat, network effects or not.