Examples of large sites, particularly government, desperately needed

[Margie]

Hi,

I apologise if this is the wrong forum for this question but I wasn't sure where else to put it.

I work for the web team at an Australian government agency. We're currently evaluating a replacement CMS and we're really keen to use ProcessWire (I've used it for a couple of personal sites myself).

There is a huge push from above to remain consistent with the majority of the Australian government and use one of the big name CMSs. We have tested this big name CMS and it really isn't suited to our needs. Our site is large and has a deep hierarchy (plus we have a number of other smaller sites as well). If we are forced to use the big name CMS, we have concerns about it functioning correctly, being easy for editors, and its performance.

The executive are asking for more justification, documentation and proof as to why we should use a different CMS.

I'm hoping that perhaps some people might be able to provide us with some example sites - especially government, or universities/museums/libraries, or any other institution with a large site that utilises a fairly deep hierarchy. If it's Australian that's even better. We are working our way through the Showcase section of the forum and the Sites list, but so far haven't found anything that is a really large website that is also government or similar. Plus I thought there might be some sites out there that have not been submitted.

So if you know of a site that fits the bill please let me know (or feel free to PM me if there's some reason you can't share it widely).

I really appreciate this. We don't have the date of the next executive meeting yet, but we may have to present something quite soon and we need to be ready.

Thanks,

Margaret

[Mike Rockett]

Hi Margie,

I really wish I knew of some big government sites powered by PW, though I can make an assumption as to why there many not be any, and it's exactly as you say it: big name systems tend to come first (I guess people are fearful of jumping into the unknown). I'd imagine that many of them use Drupal or maybe even SiteCore (I think it's that one, not sure).

It would've been so much nicer if those above could delegate properly, and know full-well in advance that no matter what system is used, it would be used well because it would've been vetted properly (trust issues, perhaps?).

That aside, hopefully there are some sites that folks know of and that it helps point the project in the right direction (nudge nudge).

[Margie]

Hi Mike,

Thanks, I think you're exactly right. Hopefully we can be the first to lead the way! (Though I still hope there might be someone out there already...)

Even examples of large sites, regardless of their type could be helpful. I've told our web manager about Ryan's Villas of Distinction site as I read it had about 5000 URLs at launch.

Or if any Australian users/developers/sites could make themselves known that may help too. I know there are 4 Aussie developers listed in the directory. Are there any more of you out there?

In fact, any Australian government site, even if small, if one exists, would be good to add to our list.

Fingers crossed!

 

[psy]

Hi @Margie

I'm an Aussie ProcessWire developer. Happy to help you promote the ProcessWire cause

[Margie]

Hi psy,

Thanks! Do you have any Australian site(s) that you've worked on that you're able to share?

 

[szabesz]

Hi @Margie

We have a somewhat similar thread running, have you seen it?

The first two usecases in my post are good ones I think. Also there is a category:

https://processwire.com/about/sites/categories/government/

Ryan's "own" site is a good example regarding complexity, features and speed but of course it is "off topic" otherwise.

[DaveP]

Ryan has hinted in the past that he is aware of some major (global/multinational) sites that are built on PW but that don't advertise that fact. And of course PW doesn't have a front-end fingerprint like many other CMSs.

Also take a look at https://processwire.com/about/sites/categories/education/. 

[Margie]

Thanks @szabesz, I hadn't seen that thread but I'll share it with the others in the web team!

Thanks to you and @DaveP for the links to the site categories as well. We have had a bit of a look through those and will continue to do so. I guess we were hoping we might unearth some additional ones.

Yes, it's good in a way that PW doesn't advertise itself all over your source code, but at the same time it makes it hard to figure out just how many people are using it! I'd love to know what some of those major sites are. I wonder if Ryan would be able to tell me if I asked him...

[szabesz]

13 minutes ago, Margie said:

I wonder if Ryan would be able to tell me if I asked him...

Probably the best person to ask BTW, should you manage to assemble a good list, please do not forget to post it here.

[PWaddict]

Even a bank is using ProcessWire  Checkout the International Bank of Azerbaijan.

[kongondo]

Hi. Search the forums for 'university' as well.  I know of some people here who work or have done work for Universities. I don't want to mention their names without their consent, although they've previously publicly posted about their work.

Edit

There's also this in the showcase forums

 

Edited August 23, 2017 by kongondo

[Mike Rockett]

55 minutes ago, PWaddict said:

Even a bank is using ProcessWire  Checkout the International Bank of Azerbaijan.

That is a gorgeous website by the way. Love it.

[heldercervantes]

Hey Margie. Hope you can convince them to use PW. Sorry for the long contribution, but I hope I'm giving you a good argument.

I've had a similar discussion a while back when I was "selling" PW to one of the main shopping centre chains here in Portugal (dolcevitatejo.pt is one of these sites, made in PW). They wanted an OS CMS and were leaning towards Wordpress, and I managed to convince them.

My main argument was security. Check out this article:

https://www.notanotherdotcom.com/blog/a-better-cms-part-1-security/

PW is inherently closed, with no plugins that conflict with one another or reveal publicly known vulnerabilities that can be exploited. The big three are regularly targeted just because they're popular.

Also, check out this security log for PW (you'll have to register first):

https://secuniaresearch.flexerasoftware.com/community/advisories/search/?search=processwire

... then search Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, whatever you want.

• Processwire : 0 (zero) incidents, EVER!
• Wordpress : 17 incidents in 2017
• Drupal : 4 incidents in 2017
• Joomla : 4 incidents in 2017

These include:

• Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerabilities
• SQL Injection Vulnerabilities
• Security Bypass Vulnerabilities
• Local File Inclusion Vulnerabilities

All of which are as scary as nature is in Australia. I've never heard of a PW site being compromised since I discovered it 3 years ago.

One curiosity I like to point out is something Ryan said somewhere about password recovery on PW's login page. You don't have that installed by default and need to turn it on yourself, because with password recovery on, the CMS's security will only be as high as that of the admin's email.

 

[rafaoski]

Margie recommends you to see also a comparison of CMS CRITIC Which is built on the framework of ProcessWire ... 
Mike Johnson wrote an interesting article citing PW to WP  ... 
On the other hand, this page I like SPAIN CULTURE, but I do not know that government ...

[maxf5]

I had the same discussions when i joined a new agency and when we started to make a relaunch of one of our sites.
They all wanted Typo3 or WP, but fortunately i could convince them to use ProcessWire and i was happy as f*ck.

You save at least 50% of time when building functions with the awesome PW API comparing to other CMS.
You can use PW for small and large sites, where other CMS would be a total overkill. I experienced that so called big CMS with ~100 Sites have a loading time of > 4 seconds (even with caching, gzip, css + js compression, .. ).
From one to endless languages or PW Sites with > 100.000 subsites shared in the forum, theres no limit in my opinion.
After 2 years of developing with PW, it was the best decision of my life switching from Typo3 and WP.
Just warn your Co-Workers working with PW is addictive and they'll never come back  

[Margie]

Wow thanks everyone who contributed to this overnight!

@PWaddict, that bank site is awesome.

Thanks for the link @kongondo, we'll definitely check that out, and search for university.

The security info is really useful, and obviously a very important consideration. Thanks also for the tip about the password recovery @heldercervantes!

Thanks @rafaoski for those links!

I totally agree @maxf5, and having done a couple of personal sites in PW, I know exactly what you mean about working with it being addictive!

I've also sent an email off to Ryan asking if he can name any major companies using PW, so we'll see what he comes back with.

[Christophe]

Just so that others than Margie can also see this information.
I/we could all find more of them. WIth inurl: (and more), for example.

I've removed 3 websites that had between 2500 and 3000 results.
inurl:http://arts.ufl.edu/ -> about 5 400 results

inurl:http://www.kidsportcanada.ca/ -> around 5 610 results
inurl:http://visionsource.com/ -> around 5 670 results
inurl:https://www.clinicalgenome.org/ -> around 13 900 results

Edited August 24, 2017 by Christophe

[adrian]

A few government / university sites for you:

• This one is currently mostly US government (https://ecoreportcard.org/), but there is one report card for by the Brazilian government (https://ecoreportcard.org/report-cards/guanabara-bay/about/) and another for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Columbian government (https://ecoreportcard.org/report-cards/orinoco-river/about/). And there will be more international ones to come in the future. This site has quite a deep hierarchy.
   
• This one is a Maryland State Government and University of Maryland initiative: https://chesapeakebaystory.umces.edu/
   
• This is a US and Australian government combined education initiative: https://usaus-h2o.org/ (it's looking pretty old now - it was actively used for a 3 years, but is abandoned, for now at least).
   
• Another one for Maryland government and other universities and agencies: https://madeclear.org

Hopefully there are some useful examples for you there.

[Margie]

Thanks @adrian, that's great!

 

[AAD Web Team]

Sorry to resurrect an older post, but I just had to provide an update. This is Margaret (also known as Margie, the one who started this thread - that's my personal account), as we got the go ahead to replace our current CMS with ProcessWire!

This is our new AAD web team account. The web team is comprised of Warwick (web manager), myself (web developer) and Narelle (web developer).  AAD = Australian Antarctic Division.

We're just getting started at the moment, testing out some modules and so forth, but I expect you'll be seeing some more of us around the forums as we get further into moving all our sites across to ProcessWire!

[grimezy]

That's great to hear Margaret!

Will be good to see how things come along and good to see a big project being worked on using ProcessWire in Australia.

 

[adrian]

Best of luck with the project Margie! If you happen to need any help from a marine scientist come web developer who speaks Strayan, just let me know ?

[AAD Web Team]

Haha thanks @adrian, will do.

 

[abdus]

4 hours ago, adrian said:

a marine scientist come web developer who speaks Strayan

For those confused like me:

Quote

Most native English speakers will pronounce all the syllables in “Australia,” but we Aussies say “Straya” instead

 

[DaveP]

9 hours ago, AAD Web Team said:

Australian Antarctic Division

I'm already looking forward to seeing this!