HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE
For the past 10-plus years, I’ve blogged from various platforms to experiment with their scalability and usability. I initially started with WordPress, but as I quickly discovered other content management systems or web publishing platforms, I of course gave them a shot. There were common ones such as Drupal, Joomla, Concrete5, and Squarespace from the early years. In the later years, I gave Wix, Webflow, Medium, and some flat file CMSs such as Grav, Jekyll, and Gatsby a try. Ultimately, I came back to square one with a trusted tool that just did the job.
USABILITY
I’m going to flat-out say it, if the tool takes longer than 30 to 60 minutes for me to spin up and understand the user interface, it’s not worth my time. I like to get stuff out fast.
The user interface, at least for me, matters greatly. I’m more of a visual learner and interactions with intuitive applications make a lot of sense. If the system doesn’t make me feel confident in independently uploading and publishing content, I can’t see how a non-tech-based end-user wouldn’t have the same feelings.
WordPress has always kept the navigation simple and the posting of articles simple. Granted, you can enhance the user interface with custom post types or additional fields by using tools like ACF Pro and the like. But in the end, straight out of the box and ease of use is what I fell in love with the most.
SCALABILITY
There are however, other tools that I’ve used that have no user interface, flat-file CMSs, or “Jamstack” applications such as Jekyll, Grav, Gatsby strictly rely on terminal usage and loading up a local browser copy by running commands through the terminal. At this point in my career, I was pretty comfortable with the terminal. Not seeing an interface to make changes to your site was fine. The drawback was dealing with the small things that allow the tool to even run properly. I ran into issues with node module files, or package installs that made me lose half a day to just debugging issues. There wasn’t an easy way to publish and manage your files, host images, and videos, and style a site unless you used a true content management system.
Then there are those simple paywall platforms such as Wix, Squarespace, and Webflow, Medium. These platforms provide a quick fix, but at a price. The technology is also locked in and they give you very little to customize the site to your liking unless you pay more. The last system I used was Webflow. Nothing having to upgrade your plan to a business level just to use more then 20,000 lines of CSS or JavaScript code is a huge “NO” in my book.
COMMUNITY
In the end, I still fall back to a WordPress or Drupal platform use to their ease of use. You’re also not locked into a paid system. The traditional CMSs are always evolving with new components and you know there is long-term support from the open-source community, which is always open to help you out. Plus, if you’re knowledgeable enough, you can contribute back! I’m not saying there aren’t community outlets strictly for WordPress and Drupal, but the code base you use can be shared amongst the community if you have any issues.
Then there are the events hosted by official vendors and users like us. WordCamps, Meetup groups, DrupalCons. I’ve attended them all and the people you physically or virtually meet and discuss about technology are very satisfying. I’m a strong proponent of open-source technology and I don’t believe anyone should be locked into a system and work alone behind closed doors.
CONCLUSION
I’ll be sticking with WordPress for a while now. It was the first platform I used to build custom sites for clients and a place for me to share my knowledge. I will still experiment outside of WordPress, but I will keep documentation, thoughts, and ideas centralized here.
Thanks for reading!