215

Search for alternative to WordPress surges worldwide amidst rift between WP-Engine and Matt Mullenweg (www.techradar.com)

submitted 1 week ago by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world

57 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Data from Google Trends noted search requests around the website builder boomed in October 2024, especially on October 8, where it reached a peak score of 100.

The spike in interest signals a shift in user behavior, indicating an active search for options which align more closely with user expectations around performance, control, and transparency.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] frezik@midwest.social 23 points 6 days ago

I've been giving static site generators a go, specifically Hugo. Webdevs have always treated static sites as unserious, but there's plenty of sites out there where it'd be ideal. An awful lot of those sites are currently on WordPress.

Does your local mechanics shop need a dynamic site? No. Local restaurant that points you to an external site for online ordering? No. Little gift shop selling locally produced goods? If they don't intend to sell online, then no. A manufacturer with product pages that have a "where to buy" button that sends you to their sales partner in your country? Nope.

How many CPU cycles are wasted on these sites that could be nothing more than reading a file and streaming it back to the client?

[-] SirEDCaLot@lemmy.today 10 points 6 days ago

This is a very good point. The other issue is security. The little mechanic shop that has no dynamic content, technically should be static pages, so when it's left alone and not updated for 3 years it doesn't get hacked by some WordPress vulnerability.

[-] riskable@programming.dev 24 points 6 days ago

Yes! Finally the world can maybe move on from PHP!

[-] eager_eagle@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

PHP 7 or 8 + Laravel is fine

[-] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 16 points 6 days ago

PHP 8 is actually really good. Think last time I was angry at PHP was pre 7.4 PHP

[-] Naich@lemmings.world 3 points 6 days ago

Have they stopped using every naming convention there is (including some from other planets) in their function names?

[-] Lazycog@sopuli.xyz 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yes it has gotten much better after 8.0

Of course PHP still has some baggage but 7.x was such a breath of fresh air that it gave me hope. 8.x made me love PHP

Edit: for context to people who don't work with php on how this has been an issue (and continues to still be: Hasn't been updated in a long time but still awesome php shortcomings website from the creator of advent of code

[-] diffusive@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

ConventionForReal_real_v2()

[-] frezik@midwest.social 1 points 6 days ago

I don't see why I should care. In 2001, your choices for backend webdev were basically PHP, Perl, Python, or Java. Now we have a dozen languages competing for the top spot. Elixir is becoming a personal favorite, but I don't see why I should bother with PHP if I don't already have a legacy platform in it.

[-] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 8 points 6 days ago

Huh? PHP wasn't the issue

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] Zak@lemmy.world 17 points 6 days ago

It's open source. The alternative, if project governance actually starts making problems for end users is that someone will fork it. Cloning the plugin/theme repository makes that a bit more hassle, but it's entirely doable.

That's not to say there's no room for more CMS projects. Wordpress is a little clunky, and variety is good.

[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 11 points 6 days ago

Is there a better alternative though?

I was pretty disappointed at the options for a FOSS CMS when I last looked a year or so ago. Ghost looked good but is held back by the lack of a genuine plugin system.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 6 days ago

Drupal has been the main competitor for decades, but the biggest difference is that it's not blog-style with a timeline of posts, it's nodes and categories.

[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 6 points 6 days ago

WordPress itself isn't a problem. Leach away my FOSS fans. Heck, customization up the wazoo. For a developer, it's really really easy to make it your own. A competent developer can be taught WordPress CMS and understand what's under the hood within a few weeks.

Contributing back to WordPress? Getting harder and harder with Matt being the biggest barrier.

It's becoming one of those scenarios like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Fuck those companies. But I'll build apps on your platform and play by your stupid ass rules to earn a living while also giving you the finger.

[-] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

I moved to a static site generator, Hugo in this case, because I felt that WordPress was too much for a simple website with some articles.

[-] zout@fedia.io 3 points 6 days ago

There's a fork of Wordpress which still has the old editor, which looks fine to me. I don't know anything about the people behind it though, and haven't yet tried it myself.

[-] thesystemisdown@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

https://www.classicpress.net/
It's pretty solid.

[-] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

A block editor being built into wordpress was inevitable and long overdue in fact, and they let elementor steal most of them market while they shuffled their feet on the issue

[-] photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago

Just learn HTML?

[-] nullPointer@programming.dev 1 points 6 days ago

is Zope/Plone still a thing?

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] ctenidium@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Some weeks ago I learned about ClassicPress: https://www.classicpress.net/

[-] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 4 points 6 days ago

I actually don't mind Gutenberg, but I fucking hate how I have to do everything with buttons and interfaces and all the paid half baked plugins I have to either spend a week developing myself or pay 40 dollars a month just to Access it for a year in a single domain or site and have to make botched multi language multi site networks that can't even effectively share a theme and an awful theme that I was told was good but I can't even set a fucking sidebar so I go into the fucking theme folder and MODİFY TBE FUCKİNG THEME MFSELF FUCK J SHOULD'VE JUST USED HUGO

[-] ctenidium@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

Yeah, me too. Everything is a subscription nowadays, I hate it just so much.

[-] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Interesting, I tried the migrator plugin on my basic 2 page site and none of my plugins or theme are compatible with ClassicPress. It wants me to drop all the way back to the 2017 base theme.

Great for a new site I suppose.

[-] ctenidium@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I think it's maybe not for everyone nor suitable for every project. But I think it's a cool idea and maybe i will use it for rather conservative projects.

[-] Naich@lemmings.world 9 points 6 days ago

Anything community produced with a tool to transfer over WP sites would do pretty well at the moment.

[-] catloaf@lemm.ee 9 points 6 days ago

One of the big selling points of Wordpress has been customization, so it's unlikely you'll be able to directly transfer anything more than the raw post. Any plugins you were relying on will not exist.

[-] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 days ago

WordPress does provide a rest API, so you can do headless WordPress. It's essentially your content/data in JSON. From that point, you can do whatever.

The issue is you still need a CMS, or use WordPress.

[-] LibreHans@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

The data format in wordpress is ridiculously bad though, if you just want to get content from an api use a decent framwork.

[-] MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 days ago

The spike in interest signals a shift in user behavior, indicating an active search for options which align more closely with user expectations around performance, control, and transparency.

Good. Maybe people still can draw conclusions from the barrage of security holes in plugins (of which anything other than a blog had way too much and shouldn't have used a blogging engine from start).

[-] MisterMoo@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago

No one’s going to remember this in a year. Remember when Unity supposedly torched their business? They’re doing fine.

[-] cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago

bring back greymatter cowards.

(but for real, moveable type is probably the closest alternative)

[-] yournamehere@lemm.ee 1 points 6 days ago

it is not about wp engine. wordpress has just gotten really shit. gutenberg forced onto users eventhough it is the worst rated plugin in history. connect to wordpress,woocommerce,elementor,yoast so they also have a store to sell you shit with a subscripton. woocommerce pdf slip plugin...4$/month on the woostore..

enshittification has won this game.

[-] KneeTitts@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

wordpress has just gotten really shit. gutenberg forced onto users eventhough it is the worst rated plugin in history

meh I make entire sites with gutenberg, nothing was forced on me cuz I could have used (yuk) elementor.. I prefer not to

load more comments (1 replies)

load more comments

this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024

215 points (97.8% liked)

Technology

60090 readers

2892 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS