Due to all the #WordPress drama I thought I'd list out some alternative CMSs that I think will fit the criteria people have when looking to jump ship.
Edit: This article got way more attention than I was expecting! I've made a few editorial changes to include ones suggested by others, as well as some context which you should be aware of before diving into them:
Oh hey, creator meta is working! Thanks @robb
Nice knowing you all…
I scanned the comments from the post and they're all just suggesting super niche CMSs or Jamstack type stuff, which wasn't the brief. Also nice to see some upset people who didn't like the politics twist. Sorry but tech is not exempt from politics 💅🏻
@DavidDarnes My fav—@getkirby—made the cut, obviously. 🚀
@DavidDarnes Thanks for including us in the list 💛
@DavidDarnes thanks for including Craft! Let me know if you’d ever like a quick demo of it. Content modeling comes together pretty quickly 😅
@brandon oh wow thanks Brandon! PS. Nice to see the Craft Mastodon instance ✨
@DavidDarnes
I'd like to test some of the others, but I have used Craft CMS quite a bit. It's more complex than a file-based system, but if you like the idea of a drag-drop data model editor with flexible type checking, it can be pretty powerful. Craft CMS just in general is dense with features.
Depending on your need, you might enjoy the depth you can go with the data modeling, or find it a hindrance.
@chris_hayes @DavidDarnes Someone I know using CraftCMS told me you cab reach a decent level of content accessibility thanks to some plugins.
Last time I used a CMS was a while ago with Laravel Nova, a paid first-party package that was rather handy, coming on top of any Laravel app (reusing data models and stuff).
@meduz @DavidDarnes Laravel Nova seems pretty great too. The agency I was at, was evaluating moving from Craft to Laravel. We ended up just leaving self-hosted CMS's entirely before I could play with Nova much, but that was for unrelated reasons.
@chris_hayes @DavidDarnes Well now nobody needs to move from Craft to Laravel anymore since Craft itself will move to Laravel (next year if I'm correct). :p
@chris_hayes @DavidDarnes I never liked that WordPress needed ACF as a plugin to do any deep content modeling and would always recommend Craft as a replacement to that.
@threetonesun @DavidDarnes that's a good comparison. I think anyone using ACF would enjoy craft. Before getting into Craft CMS, I did a WP site with Elementor + GeneratePress + Pods.io. I do appreciate what those projects are adding to WP, but if you like data modeling, might as well use a tool built for the purpose.
@DavidDarnes You guys are hypocrites. You talk wokeism and left politics all the time. One guy says something outside of your line and you massacre him for it. I was going to share this post, but not now.
@zudn great, thanks for not!
@DavidDarnes. - there's been new #WordPress drama? What's been happening? I'm out of the loop.
@TheEnquirer there’s a link in the article that explains everything 👍🏻
Oct 11, 2024, 6:45 AMwow, can't believe Textpattern not even in the list
@poes I mean it’s a bit basic, but I guess it qualifies 😅
Oct 11, 2024, 7:35 AMIt's a classic, but powerfull 😊
@poes thanks, added!
@DavidDarnes Please have a look at @wagtail, powered by @django
@konsonantenboy @wagtail @django oh how could I forget! Torchbox are up the road from me 😄
@DavidDarnes @wagtail @django Say hello from me :)
@konsonantenboy @wagtail @django thanks for the suggestion, added (cc @vossisboss)
@DavidDarnes @konsonantenboy Thanks for adding us! This is a great resource for folks looking for alternatives. I'll definitely share this around.
@vossisboss @konsonantenboy thanks a lot Meagen!
@DavidDarnes
Despite the recurring reports, #Joomla is not dead and is certainly a good alternative to Wordpress.
@viviana if it works for you then cool, but from personal experience it's not been an enjoyable CMS to use. Almost all instances of encountering it has been surrounded with negative comments
@DavidDarnes That is sad ... I use Joomla since version 1 and I'm also part of several teams inside the Community. We do a lot to make Joomla better and better. For example in terms of #accessibility is Joomla very good.
@viviana honestly that is lovely to hear 💜
@DavidDarnes @viviana It would be interesting to learn what your pain points were/are with Joomla. I mean, we can't improve us without feedback. I'm also open for private feedback, if you don't want to put it here. You can reach me also via hannes.papenberg@community.joomla.org
@DavidDarnes @hackwar @viviana You should give it a new test-run Dave. It has come a long way since 'a couple of years' ago. If the current state is enough to make a come-back? I don't know. In the end people will probably turn a blind eye and stick with what they currently have and know: something with the grass always being greener on the other side :)
@DavidDarnes @viviana I honestly would still love to hear your feedback. Preferably even what you can remember right now and what you think about it after you tried it again. My chance to have a first impression is long gone, so getting the experience of someone from the outside would be so valuable. I think Joomla is awesome in its functionality, but I also feel that we are missing something in the UI which I can't put my finger on. So feedback would be awesome.
@hackwar I'm glad you said UI, it's a bigger factor that people think. Whenever I want to check out a CMS I'm looking for a screenshot of the UI, and often there isn't one and I have to use Google Images. It's the thing my clients will interact with the most, I need it to be an enjoyable experience. Joomla's isn't bad, it just feels dated. Slight admin panel energy 😅
@DavidDarnes I would be really interested what version your experience is based on. The backend has been changed a lot in the past 3 years and if your last install was even older than Joomla 3, you are in for a surprise. 😉
@DavidDarnes is there a reason Drupal didn't make the cut?
@mensrea past bad experiences, however that was a while ago
@DavidDarnes fair enough. it has come a very long way and might be worth having a look at. the biggest issue i have is updating between major versions is a pain
@mensrea I may add it in, along with Joomla, despite the slight destain I experience for them there's a reason they got so popular
@DavidDarnes right there with you on joomla. i've never understood it
@DavidDarnes I personally really appreciate this last sentence a lot. It seems as it's totally out of style to have any sort of values in tech. It was cool for a while as long as it helped with marketing.
But we are human beings behind those projects and as such we have our values and they are automatically reflected in what we do.
We just sat down recently to write down ours as as team: https://getkirby.com/team to show what we stand for and - even more important - to be accountable for it.
@DavidDarnes Being hit by the YC crowd is a terrible experience. I just wish you a lot of strength to ignore the comment section :)
@bastianallgeier thanks but it's too lat Bastian! Thankfully I just glanced through and didn't look too deeply. Really cool to see values being put into writing here, but to be honest it's not a surprise coming from yourself 😊
PS. There was comments there related to Kirby, they were upset about the lack of Twitter account. Frankly though you're doing them a favour, it's not a great way to learn about updates
@DavidDarnes Haha, I think disappointing people by not having a Twitter account is a fantastic filter for a healthy community.
@bastianallgeier @DavidDarnes Pro move!
@DavidDarnes speaking of comments, they appear to have a horizontal overflow on my phone.
@Jbasoo dang! I need to change that anyway, plan is to remove them and just have a Mastodon post to reshare
@DavidDarnes @Jbasoo Maybe this could be some inspiration for you:
https://mariohamann.com/showing-mastodon-reactions-on-a-statamic-website
> The criteria for this list are "Can it be downloaded, dropped onto a server, and you'll have a website?"
Can you add Joomla! too? It meets the criteria.
@hans2103 you’re right it does, I’ve had a few requests to add it so I will when I get a moment
Oct 11, 2024, 3:35 PM@DavidDarnes
Does https://obsidian.md/publish counts?
@sahil I’m afraid not, but it does look cool