The Merits (or not) of Wordpress?

[Gazley]

Hi there,

I've been using PW for a good few years now and think it is a splendid system.

Recently, I've been looking at some SEO strategies from a number of consultants. I was pretty surprised at how many of them built sites very quickly indeed using Wordpress using some pretty high quality plugins from companies like ThriveThemes (content builder, landing pages) and the general "quick to assemble" approach due to the number of cool plugins.

I know that I tend to do a lot of coding when building my PW sites (probably because I'm a developer) but these guys I've seen seem to build their ranking, professional looking Wordpress sites really quickly and just get on with the process of developing the SEO and commercials of the site without getting bogged down with a lot of code, whether that be back or front end development.

I've just put a new version of an older site live using latest ProCache and it really quick and I'm using things like it's HTML, CSS & JS compression features -- really good stuff. I don't know how Wordpress guys do this kind of lower level optimisation but for sure, I can see why Wordpress is used to build sites very quickly.

I'd be interested to hear the views of those who have used Wordpress and whether any I have seen rings true or whether  it's drawbacks (whatever they may be) outway it's apparent efficiency at putting sites together?

Many thanks!  

[LostKobrakai]

I would never deny that wordpress pages can be done quicker than processwire ones, but you only get so far as plugins take you. And as long as we are talking simple of the shelf websites and functionality. Not to mention lack of support or interoperability of plugins. I just turned down a small budget website, because it did need an calender/booking widget, which I couldn't have build from scratch for the money. That's exactly where wp shines.

But I think you can create a similarly quick workflow when creating own packages of classes, using composer packages, pw modules and html/sass components. It's just another mindset, which I just currently try to enforce. Build things in a way you can reuse it later. One good example are PageAction and IftRunnerActions. They help you encapsulating common tasks that you can reuse. If you find something in wp, which would make your life easier in processwire, just take a look at the code (keep licenses in mind) and port it over.

Do you have any particular plugin/functionality that you found on your research? 

[teppo]

In my opinion some of the convenience of putting sites up fast is diminished by the need to constantly keep an eye out for vulnerabilities. You can't just set the site up and expect it to work. The more important the site is to your business or your reputation, the more you'll have to worry about it getting hacked or otherwise tainted.

Additionally it's not all bliss when your plugin collection grows and each time you want a new one you need to consider how it affects all the existing ones.

Anyway, I've heard the same positive things, and witnessed them myself too. In this regard it mostly depends on how happy you are with the off-the-shelf solutions: if it's a perfect fit then that's great, but if you want to make "just a little change" things can get ugly really fast. Probably the best answer in that case would be "can't do it". Also, if the client (whether that's a real client, you, or someone in-house) asks for a new feature, you'll have to consider the whole plugin ecosystem before giving them an answer.

ProcessWire makes developing custom solutions extremely fast. For the kind of solutions I've been developing for years, from the scratch, ProcessWire saves me so much time per project that it's almost scary. On the other hand developing a custom solution is never going to be as fast as installing pre-made themes and plugins

[adrian]

if it's a perfect fit then that's great, but if you want to make "just a little change" things can get ugly really fast

I did a couple of WP sites back in the day and this was my experience - except that I found it was never a perfect fit, so it was never great

I think if you are happy quoting a budget price and saying no to those little changes then you can get by with WP, but I am always embarrassed to say I can't make a change that the client wants and when WP makes these changes so hard, I just don't think it is worth it.

I actually find development of even simple sites easier and quicker with PW.

[Gazley]

@teppo

Additionally it's not all bliss when your plugin collection grows and each time you want a new one you need to consider how it affects all the existing ones.

That's a really good point.

I use a few PW Pro Modules (FormBuilder, ProFields, ProCache) and haven't hit this as an issue with PW other than a few months back when I did hit an issue with FormBuilder and Ryan thought it was an incompatibility issue with the Spex module I also used throughout all my development. As a result, I ended up ripping Spex out, creating my own partials module and reverted back to a more traditional PW templating approach.

So, I think any system that uses plugins is going to run into some issues if the authors of the plugins don't keep them upto date with the underlying core platform or, the core platform isn't stringent enough to specify and enforce plugin compatibility guidelines across its plugin ecosystem.

On saying that, you'd expect premium plugins where you're paying good money to remain compatible both vertically and horizontally. I think the bigger problem comes when you use contributed plugins that may not be of commercial quality, not supported or both.

I appreciate your insights!

@adrian

I am always embarrassed to say I can't make a change that the client wants and when WP makes these changes so hard, I just don't think it is worth it.

Never used WP so have no concept of whether it's hard to make changes, so if that was your experience, that is also a great point!

[Tom.]

Hello, Me here. 

I work for a creative marketing agency and I have worked with so many CMS's I dare not count. But some of the leading ones include; Concrete5, Drupal, Joomla and WordPress. We almost always used WordPress over these other solutions. It meant for quicker development times, need a slider? Sure Revolution Slider has you covered. I went on to start building sites by just filling a header and footer in and building the rest in Visual Composer. Sure enough... I got lazy. 

Now we have over 30 websites running WordPress and they are all running out of date, the WordPress versions, the vast amount of plugins. Keeping WordPress up to date and secure is a job within itself. Then stuff like this starts happening: https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/09/slider-revolution-plugin-critical-vulnerability-being-exploited.html. 

I now when ever we have the budget for a custom build, use ProcessWire. If I found ProcessWire earlier, I may have never used WordPress for custom builds unless client requested. ProcessWire's API is one of the most powerful I have used and kicks WordPress's WP_Query ass and without a 3rd party plugin (ACF) WordPress is a pain in the backside. 

ProcessWire is now my one true love and I'm sure destiny brought us together, but I believe we are made for each other.

[Gazley]

Hi @Tom.

Thanks for sharing your experiences with WP and I am happy to hear about your blossoming affair with Processwire!

Cheers!

[pwired]

So much already been written in the forum about wp. Anything new ? So, instead my 5 cts, here is my 1 ct about it.

How many times has wp been in the news about plugin hacks ? I used to post about that a few times. Last week

they made the news (securi) again with plugin hacks. It just goes on and on so I stopped posting about it.

The people I bumped into wanting me to make websites with wp, simply believe wp is the best choice.

Thing is you can't have a discussion with believers. Using pw I learned so many things that really matter.

I just want to mention here that I noticed that the number of newbies without coding experience entering

the pw forum has dropped to almost zero. Unlike the high number of them entering this forum during the

time of the modx evo collapse.

[Christophe]

Found on the page of my first and only twitter follower (a South African photographer). It's a retweet he made:

Could Some WordPress Plugins Actually be Harming Your Blog?

http://www.blogtyrant.com/wordpress-plugins/

[diogo]

You have to tell us your twitter name so we can follow you