Jonathan Lahijani Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 I wanted to start a conversation about other systems out there that are "ProcessWire-like", meaning they also go all in on everything being a custom field, similar database architecture and other things that make ProcessWire seem unique. What makes ProcessWire unique to you that you just haven't seen elsewhere and how deep does ProcessWire go with certain decisions or features that other systems don't from your experience? One very recent system in the JS world that's similar (at least on the surface, I've never worked with it) is Payload CMS: https://payloadcms.com/ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwsoft Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Hi, Contao (fka TypoLight) is somewhat close to ProcessWire from the Field, Template, Page point of view. However it lacks (at least when I last revisited it) from a powerful ProcessWire like API. This and the all objects are „pages“ approach are unique to PW from my point of view. Only thing I somewhat miss in PW is a global media/assets manager, but there may be a module someday. The easy to use PW-API makes the main difference for me and is the reason I ended up using PW for my latest projects. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndZyk Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 I have already mentioned it a few times, but I can recommend Kirby CMS as alternative to ProcessWire. It is very similar to ProcessWire in the structure and API, but needs no database because it is file based. Also they have a nice website, documentation and marketing including detailed changelogs. It is not as feature rich as ProcessWire and not free, you have to pay a license for commercial use, but the marketing and presentation is better in my opinion. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 CraftCMS comes to mind. It's very powerful and customizable. The Solo version is free, but the rest of the versions are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elabx Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 On 4/4/2024 at 9:54 AM, Jonathan Lahijani said: What makes ProcessWire unique to you that you just haven't seen elsewhere and how deep does ProcessWire go with certain decisions or features that other systems don't from your experience? I haven't really digged into the admin customizations of PW-like CMSs I've used like Statmic/CraftCMS but the way you can modify view/behaviour of Inputfield and it's derived classes in ProcessWire is really nice imho. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbmnfktr Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 (edited) On 4/4/2024 at 5:54 PM, Jonathan Lahijani said: What makes ProcessWire unique to you that you just haven't seen elsewhere and how deep does ProcessWire go with certain decisions or features that other systems don't from your experience? Customized templates and fields Each and every content type only has the fields it really needs. Books, companies, recipes - it doesn't matter what kind of data my clients or I have to deal with. The templates and fields will reflect that. Therefore clients don't even have to learn anything in regards to creating or editing data. Super easy. It's typesafe (by my definition) We can discuss the meaning of 'typesafe' here but... I think ProcessWire is somewhat typesafe because I define each field, template, relationship, and almost everything else. I know where to expect what kind of data and know what data is allowed in which field. No guessing, no errors. (Sure this depends on your setup and your will to invest some time.) Works perfectly fine for non-developers I won't call myself a coder or programmer - I just tinker around with code and have fun. When I started using ProcessWire, getting around was super easy, and learning the fundamentals took only a day or two. From there on, it was easy-going. It's impressive what you can achieve with only some if/foreach/echo in PHP/ProcessWire. I said it a few years back and still stand behind it: ProcessWire seems to be the easiest way to learn and work with PHP. Low maintenance There are ProcessWire projects of mine that haven't been updated in the last 5+ years and still work without any PHP or security issues. The moment a project is finished and works without flaws it will do so for a very long time. There is no real need to update a project. Small footprint, high performance A ProcessWire website doesn't need that much of a big hosting package. The moment you start using Core cache functionalities or even ProCache most websites are fine and ready for an average amount of traffic. Maybe not ready for a slashdot/reddit/ProductHunt-peak but that's a totally different story. I can get so much out of ProcessWire compared to WordPress (and others I used/tested in the past). ZIP downloads and no real need for a package manager What I really love and enjoy is that you can get everything as a ZIP file, unpack those, move them around and do whatever you want or need with them. Not needing NPM or composer to get started - like in the good old days - is just perfect. In the last 1-2 years I did a lot with NPM due to 11ty and Astro, yet an old-school ZIP file has its very own charme. For comparison: Installing CraftCMS feels good and really nice, yet I absolute don't know what's happening, what is needed, and so on. It's like a blackbox. It works but I don't know why. I hate that. Edited April 8 by wbmnfktr 2024-04-08: Added point 6. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbmnfktr Posted April 6 Share Posted April 6 In addition to my comment, this might be a nice addition: https://openalternative.co/categories/cms And yes... ProcessWire is not listed yet anywhere. We should add it there, shouldn't we? Or maybe @ryan himself. Just asking. https://openalternative.co/submit 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernhard Posted April 7 Share Posted April 7 10 hours ago, wbmnfktr said: We should add it there, shouldn't we? Done 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkE Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 Interesting topic and also interesting to compare the various CMSs at https://openalternative.co/categories/cms. Unfortunately it is not possible at-a-glance to see what is a pure CMS and what is more of a framework. The initial attraction of ProcessWire to me was that it combines the ease of use / UI of a CMS with the power and flexibility of a framework. This means that you can build a fully functional custom app but still enable non-technical editors to access the content they need. Which of the “ProcessWire-like” CMSs do that? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wbmnfktr Posted April 8 Share Posted April 8 I remember giving Silverstripe (https://www.silverstripe.org/) a try, way before I knew ProcessWire. I remember people really liking and working with it. I looks and feels similar on the backend, yet API-/PHP-side was and is quite different. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
szabesz Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 9 hours ago, wbmnfktr said: Silverstripe I developed my first websites using SilverStripe. I did like it, but if a site was complex, upgrading to a new main version was not straightforward at all, and one had to thoroughly test everything to make sure all was good. I am glad I found ProcessWire afterward. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndZyk Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 LocomotiveCMS is also similar to ProcessWire. But I only have little experience with it. What turned me off was the need for Ruby and long responding time to questions. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophe Posted April 9 Share Posted April 9 If there is a ruby one there should also be a python one 🙂: https://wagtail.org/ If ProcessWire didn't exist I probably would have already tried it. (I would also probably have tried a ruby one.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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