Is Wordpress.org the future?

Gavin "shels"

Just looking through a few websites tonight (possibly getting started with a site of my own) and most of them used Wordpress.org with installed Themes, etc...

Are people opting to pay the extra to use these instead of actually hardcoding fully?

matt-dublin

not necessarily wordpress.org but wordpress for a cms is a great solution, im porting most of my clients over to wordpress purely for its ease of use and performance. I find it much faster than the likes of joomla/DNN and i think its easier to theme as well.

My customers also find the back end easier to use as its fairly straight forward and self intuitave for beginners.

Also the plugins available for it now are really great, such as woocommerce for shops, Wysija for newsletters, BuddyPress for social elements, XYZ contact for customised contact forms and they're just a few.

why hard code anything anymore??

Gavin "shels"

matt-dublin wrote: »

not necessarily wordpress.org but wordpress for a cms is a great solution, im porting most of my clients over to wordpress purely for its ease of use and performance. I find it much faster than the likes of joomla/DNN and i think its easier to theme as well.

My customers also find the back end easier to use as its fairly straight forward and self intuitave for beginners.

Also the plugins available for it now are really great, such as woocommerce for shops, Wysija for newsletters, BuddyPress for social elements, XYZ contact for customised contact forms and they're just a few.

why hard code anything anymore??

Are you in the industry? If so, how long?

Wordpress is handy to use as a CMS, I'm trying out wordpress.com atm and it's real easy to use.

The reason I said "Is Wordpress.org" is for the reasons you said, they allow plugins, addition themes, etc...

matt-dublin

Gavin "shels" wrote: »

Are you in the industry? If so, how long?

Wordpress is handy to use as a CMS, I'm trying out wordpress.com atm and it's real easy to use.

The reason I said "Is Wordpress.org" is for the reasons you said, they allow plugins, addition themes, etc...

Yes I am in the industry, and I am saying that Wordpress is good for developers and clients.

I don't get your argument???

Gavin "shels"

matt-dublin wrote: »

Yes I am in the industry, and I am saying that Wordpress is good for developers and clients.

I don't get your argument???

I'm just finishing up with a Computing Degree in college and looking at my avenue's, I like web design, even from the hard coding base.

I'm just wondering how widespread is Wordpress.org is used in the industry? At the moment I'm just using Wordpress.com to make a few simple sites for non-profit organisations, is it worth my while paying for Wordpress.org to see what it's like is what I'm trying to figure out.

dahamsta

wordpress.org is the open source version of WordPress.com. No payment involved. Download it, install it, play with it. Perhaps try visiting the site and reading a little? :-)

Gavin "shels"

dahamsta wrote: »

wordpress.org is the open source version of WordPress.com. No payment involved. Download it, install it, play with it. Perhaps try visiting the site and reading a little? :-)

I've read up on a small bit, not too much detail as I want to see want the industry is looking for. My point about the .org is you have to pay for hosting, editing CSS, upgrades, etc... essentially the things you don't do in .com.

Fanny Cradock

Different CMSs do different things. Wordpress has been around for years and it obviously plugs a rather large gap in the market. However, there is no perfect CMS. Thais is why, for example, Wordpress isn't something you would use for membership sites.

I'm afraid your thread question doesn't make sense.

28064212

Gavin shels wrote: »

I've read up on a small bit, not too much detail as I want to see want the industry is looking for. My point about the .org is you have to pay for hosting, editing CSS, upgrades, etc... essentially the things you don't do in .com.

The only "extra" you pay for with .org is the hosting, and the .com hosting is insufficient for anything more complicated than a blog. Just download XAMPP, install Wordpress on it, and play with it, it's the only way you're going to find out what it's like.

As to what the "industry" wants, that doesn't make a lot of sense. Some jobs are suitable for a CMS, some aren't

dahamsta

Gavin shels wrote: »

I've read up on a small bit, not too much detail as I want to see want the industry is looking for. My point about the .org is you have to pay for hosting, editing CSS, upgrades, etc... essentially the things you don't do in .com.

It depends on what you're looking for really. If you're looking for a fairly static setup with some limitations in terms of what you can do on the platform, then WordPress.com is just fine. If you want to leverage the platform properly though, with a custom design or functionality not provided for with the standard plugins, then .org is the way to go.

In terms of expense, yes you'll pay for hosting and consultation, but WordPress developers are at the more affordable end of the spectrum. It's one of my favoured platforms, for example, and while some of the sites I've developed are high-end and cost into the thousands, for smaller business I recommend they start small, with brochure-style sites using bog standard templates, that can come in at as little as €500.

WordPress can be used for membership sites btw, there's plenty of plugins available out there for it.

adam

Fanny Cradock

I don't doubt that WP has membership plugins. But the issue here is that they are plugins, not bespoke code. That means that they aren't always going to cover the needs of the client, nor are they going to offer the most elegant solution if they do. A CMS like Drupal will handle complex membership sites better than WP. The same goes for a site that requires a shopping cart platform. And that is why I would rather my shopping cart site built in something like LemonStand, and not WP.

I'm not knocking WP. But the simple fact is that there are other CMSs out there that do certain things better. They may not be as popular but they still do it better. WP might be extensible but it is not the best solution in every conceivable circumstance. Indeed, that's why I've stated that there is no perfect solution.

WP is great when we consider it's strengths and weaknesses. But it's not the future.

matt-dublin

what is the future then?

according to the link above there's huge migration from joomla/drupal to wordpress so i don't see anything that will come out with that level of functionaility or performance to overtake it in the market?

It ticks almost every box:

Easy to use
Fast
Easy to code & style
Newsletters: Wsyjia Plugin
Membership Site : Buddypress Plugin
E-Commerce: Woocommerce Plugin
Forms: XYZ contact forms

and there's plugins for anything you want to do, so you don't need to spend a load of time coding, thats the beauty of if. You spend less time deliverying quality sites which reduces the cost to your customers.

If wordpress isn't the winner then what is?

Fanny Cradock

matt-dublin wrote: »

what is the future then?

according to the link above there's huge migration from joomla/drupal to wordpress so i don't see anything that will come out with that level of functionaility or performance to overtake it in the market?

It ticks almost every box:

Easy to use
Fast
Easy to code & style
Newsletters: Wsyjia Plugin
Membership Site : Buddypress Plugin
E-Commerce: Woocommerce Plugin
Forms: XYZ contact forms

and there's plugins for anything you want to do, so you don't need to spend a load of time coding, thats the beauty of if. You spend less time deliverying quality sites which reduces the cost to your customers.

If wordpress isn't the winner then what is?

It doesn't tick nearly every box. And that is the point. No CMS does.

Now if your clients needs happen to be met by WP plugins then that is fine. But not all clients are like that. Some have very complex demands that can't be met by a plugin.

matt-dublin

then just build a plugin for your requirements?????

Fanny Cradock

matt-dublin wrote: »

then just build a plugin for your requirements?????

Please reread my last sentence. Not every need can be met by a WP plugin. Again, I'm not knocking WP. It is popular for a reason. But it can't do everything. For example, when was the last time a plugin gave you a hug?

matt-dublin

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Please reread my last sentence. Not every need can be met by a WP plugin. Again, I'm not knocking WP. It is popular for a reason. But it can't do everything. For example, when was the last time a plugin gave you a hug?

http://en.support.wordpress.com/hugs/

need i say more???? :P
(im really surprised that url was even there!!)

dahamsta

While I agree that WP isn't the be-all and end-all - no piece of software is, or can be - and I use other apps for heavy-duty specialist requirements, for light- to medium-duty WordPress is by far the best all rounder.

Drupal being better out of the box at membership isn't really relevant to me, because: a) there are WP plugins out there that handle it better than Drupal, which are hardly onerous to install and configure, and b) Drupal is a steaming turd of cruft and nonsense that only academics should be allowed to use.

But hey, maybe that's just me.

stapolinhosting

Drupal is not as easy to use as it is made out to be. I have been developing for a number of years and I still can't fully get my head around drupal. Wordpress on the other hand, well, its almost too easy to do anything you want to with it.

Membership was mentioned a few posts back.. WP is great as a membership site. There are themes and plugins to help you put a membership site together in very little time. There are some great paid themes that will give you a fully loaded membership site.

When it comes to customisation, WP is the king in my opinion. Its hierarchy structure makes it quite simple to customise into almost any kind of site with little effort. Onsite SEO values are brilliant too.

Feathers

matt-dublin wrote: »

what is the future then?

according to the link above there's huge migration from joomla/drupal to wordpress so i don't see anything that will come out with that level of functionaility or performance to overtake it in the market?

…

If wordpress isn't the winner then what is?

You know there are other languages than PHP?

matt-dublin

Feathers wrote: »

You know there are other languages than PHP?

I'm fluent in asp classic and guinness