Wordpress alternative

[pentel]

We have had several iterations of a website for quite a few years

Our first one was built using webplus. This was simple to use, simple to update and worked well for us at the time.

We then had a website built with an ecommerce function. No idea how it was built but the user interface was great. The back end worked well and updating / adding products, changing shipping etc all worked really well. We ran this for around 9 years and the only issue we had was an increasing number of spam emails. The developer of this website changed career and so no longer offers updates.

We then had a website built using wordpress. It looks fine, but the unreliability when applying updates is a major issue. The user interface is hugely complicated and to add products is hidden away and far from simple to do, Tiered pricing worked initially and now it doesn't. Changing images is unpredictable. It seems like the only way to change anything and get the website to continue to work is to have the developer do it. The developer did produce a user guide for the website which runs to over 10 pages and is far from clear.

It seems that over time things have gone from being really simple and reliable (webplus) to being unstable and flaky (wordpress).

Is there an alternative we should investigate?

 

[fisicx]

If you are having those sorts of problems it suggests the developer has done something iffy.

Wordpress is normally very stable. Image uploading is drag and drop and product management is simple. I set up a wordpress ecommerce site last week for someone and they got the hang of it in about 10 minutes.

What's your website?

 

[ctrlbrk]

This sounds more like a Wordpress mismanagement issue than Wordpress being unreliable.

Wordpress is famous for its user friendliness. What part of the user interface do you find complicated?

Changing images too is relatively simple. When you say

Tiered pricing worked initially and now it doesn't.

What plugin are you using for that?

 

[paulears]

I had all my web sites on web plus. I loved it. Then it was cancelled. I tried a few and settled on muse. i loved that too. Now it is unsupported too. I’m going to need to shift at some point and if anyone knows something that would operate in a similar manner I’d love to hear. I do not want Wordpress or anything that requires server extensions. Images, text, hyperlinks and html embedding are all I need for PayPal buttons. Easy integration of files for download and music/video embedding is about it.

 

[fisicx]

@paulears - Wordpress doesn’t need any server extensions. It is database driven but that’s just a standard sql thing.

 

[Solve My Problem]

It sounds like you need someone to take a look at your setup. Typically plugins are installed that are not needed.

Updates should be flawless, we manage a ton of customer WordPress sites and this includes updating them. This is a daily/weekly check with backups for rollbacks etc...

The interface can be a bit of a nightmare for people but an hour on zoom will normally cover any issues and howtos.

I agree it's not the most user friendly interface but often you only need to access a couple of areas

Happy to take a look for you anytime

Darren

 

[pentel]

Updates should be flawless, we manage a ton of customer WordPress sites and this includes updating them. This is a daily/weekly check with backups for rollbacks etc...

This is one aspect that makes wordpress an issue.

Daily / weekly updates were not needed with webplus or the custom built website.

 

[Solve My Problem]

This is one aspect that makes wordpress an issue.

Daily / weekly updates were not needed with webplus or the custom built website.

It depends on the plugins used, 9 out of 10 times it's an update to a plugin. Either security focused or an enhancement.

Security is the biggest issue, you take a normal WordPress site and it's probably got multiple plugins. Hence the need to update.

We have a backup solution that updates prior to any changes, so it's safe to then update.

We also have a system in place that runs to check specific functionality or pages so after a backup we know the site is running properly.

This is not unique with WordPress, any platform requires updates and regular ones. Its the nature of the beast now that comes with complexity and security.

Darren

 

[fisicx]

This is one aspect that makes wordpress an issue.

Daily / weekly updates were not needed with webplus or the custom built website.

Set to automatically update and it no longer becomes a bother. If set up correctly you shouldn’t need any plugins other than shop itself.

 

[gpietersz]

This is one aspect that makes wordpress an issue.

Daily / weekly updates were not needed with webplus or the custom built website.

Wordpress is a bit of a pain with regards to the amount of maintanance it needs, but it should not be anything like as bad as the OP es experiencing.

I suspect excessive plugin use or other developer incompetence.

We then had a website built with an ecommerce function. No idea how it was built but the user interface was great. The back end worked well and updating / adding products, changing shipping etc all worked really well. We ran this for around 9 years and the only issue we had was an increasing number of spam emails. The developer of this website changed career and so no longer offers updates.

Could you have not found a new developer and got them to fix the spam issue? If it aint broke dont fix it. Might it be possible to go back to this?

Is there an alternative we should investigate?

Lots. Depends on exact needs, but the obvious alternatives are any number of ecommerce systems, both self-hosted and hosted.

A custom system is an alternative that would work for you, as it appears it already has. Although I make most of my living from developing custom systems, I have to say its an expensive solution unless your profits are big enough the cost of development is not a problem, or you have niche requirements that mean you have to have one.

 

[fisicx]

The site is hosted by ionos in Germany on server shared with 21 thousand other sites. Which is undoubtedly the cause of all their problems.

 

[pentel]

The site is hosted by ionos in Germany on server shared with 21 thousand other sites. Which is undoubtedly the cause of all their problems.

Happy to look at moving the website if it will solve issues, suggestions welcome.

 

[Solve My Problem]

Decent hosting never hurts, you get what you pay for.

 

[fisicx]

Happy to look at moving the website if it will solve issues, suggestions welcome.

Find a uk host and invest in a better quality hosting package. I use ukhosting.net and never had a problem. I’m sure others will make their own reccomendations.

 

[paulears]

So is there a simple, branded one-stop product. Wordpress is fine if you like running and fiddling with website, but many of us don’t. I just need a replacement along the lines of the two mentioned. No modules, no messing around. I’ve got one site still working on web plus, but I don’t have web plus on any computer any longer and I can’t update it. Luckily it is essentially a place holder site so not important, but I don’t need anything clever. Muse lets me add products and pages and get paid via PayPal buttons. I can talk my wife through making a change via zoom if I’m away and need to access it without my computers.

I need a product that does not require working components on the server, which muse and web plus didn’t.

 

[Solve My Problem]

So is there a simple, branded one-stop product. Wordpress is fine if you like running and fiddling with website, but many of us don’t. I just need a replacement along the lines of the two mentioned. No modules, no messing around. I’ve got one site still working on web plus, but I don’t have web plus on any computer any longer and I can’t update it. Luckily it is essentially a place holder site so not important, but I don’t need anything clever. Muse lets me add products and pages and get paid via PayPal buttons. I can talk my wife through making a change via zoom if I’m away and need to access it without my computers.

I need a product that does not require working components on the server, which muse and web plus didn’t.

There are lots of choices still but things have moved on and as a result it gets more complicated.

It's important that websites work correctly on mobiles, when you add that into the mix you need to make sure the content works correctly which often means different content for both.

If it's eCommerce Shopify is a good solution, it's a clean interface. Hooks into Paypal, the only thing you worry about after it's built is keeping the theme up to date and that is often covered with a support contract. I typically keep customers themes up to date whist providing support via email and hand holding in the short term.

You also have things like SquareSpace or Wix which are simplified website builders, or you opt for a custom solution but for a simple site it's usually overkill and provides no benefit to one of the above.

Darren

 

[Paul Norman]

There are, of course, alternatives to wordpress - I use one of them.

But I would hesitate to say anything particularly negative about wordpress, which must be one of the most proven bits of kit out there. Mostly, problems with it end up being problems with the hosting arrangements, or the web developer, rather than Wordpress itself.

 

[Solve My Problem]

There are, of course, alternatives to wordpress - I use one of them.

But I would hesitate to say anything particularly negative about wordpress, which must be one of the most proven bits of kit out there. Mostly, problems with it end up being problems with the hosting arrangements, or the web developer, rather than Wordpress itself.

Customers typically get overwhelmed.

WordPress is used for more than it used to be, everything that is added is almost a fudge. It's hugely powerful and solid but it's not the most user friendly.

Last year we wrote a middleman interface, it allowed updating of WordPress without ever having to login. Saved them hours each month and took away that fear.

Darren

 

[fisicx]

Most of the time when I set up Wordpress for clients they don’t actually know what they want to do. You show them how to add a new post or page they just stop. They haven’t really thought about the words and pictures do come to a grinding halt and blame WordPress for being too complicated.

I agree that when confronted with a fresh install WordPress can seem a bit daunting. But if someone has set up themes and plugins and done all the configuration it’s no different to any other CMS.

@paulears, I understand what you are saying and I used to be the same. But after switching to WordPress it has made site management so much simpler. I’ve been on a train in India with a dodgy 4g connection and updated a site. Can’t do that if it’s only on my PC at home.

 

[ctrlbrk]

Some people here talk about Web Plus. The only reference I could find is this

WebPlus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is that what people are referring to?

 

[ctrlbrk]

There are, of course, alternatives to wordpress - I use one of them.

Paul, care to share what it is?

 

[Paul Norman]

Paul, care to share what it is?

it is a product called OrangeBox - a content management system and ecommerce platform. It was developed around 14 years ago, initially to cope with a very high traffic retail business.

First, a declaration of interest - I have shares in the company that supply it, which is why I didn't mention it by name.

There are other alternatives too, of course, particularly in the arena of ecommerce platforms, all or which had advocates, and for good reason.

 

[thetiger2015]

For people with little time and other pressing issues to tend to, I think either SquareSpace or Shopify are the viable alternatives to WordPress.

Yeah, OK, you can't fiddle as much with those websites but for out of the box, straight to the point and well supported platforms that are hosted by the company themselves...I don't see any other good alternatives.

SquareSpace is best for content heavy, not much eCommerce etc. Shopify, of course, if you're running an eCommerce site and need dedicated functionality.

Personally, avoid Wix. It's OK if you're starting out and cheap but...not a scratch on the other suggestions.

 

[antropy]

If you're after an online shop then OpenCart is one of the best in our opinion, which is why we decided to specialise in it.

Paul.

 

[pentel]

Some people here talk about Web Plus. The only reference I could find is this

WebPlus - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is that what people are referring to?

That is indeed said software. Although it is no longer supported or updated there is a reasonably active forum.

 

[ctrlbrk]

That is indeed said software. Although it is no longer supported or updated there is a reasonably active forum.

Wow, ok.

Never heard of it. Doesn't mean that it's bad, but there is a reason why over 40% of the world’s websites are built with WordPress.

As many have said, WordPress is usually very stable.

You mentioned a payment plugin that no longer works. What plugin is it?

 

[gpietersz]

I need a product that does not require working components on the server, which muse and web plus didn’t.

Such things exist, I use one myself and am very happy with it.

However, such things tend to appeal to one man bands or geeks (most users are probably geeky one man bads). All the ones I have looked at require things like writing text in markdown and running something on the command line to save it to the server as HTML. Not difficult, but unfamiliar territory to most people these days.

Most people prefer something that just runs on the server.

As far as site builders go, I would prefer hosted Wordpress - you can move your content to your own Wordpress install or other CMSs fairly easily.

There are plenty of perfectly good CMSs, but I do not think Wordpress is the problem here, its the plugins or themes or the customistions.

In this case it sounds like the OP would be better off with any one of the reasonably popular ecommerce systems, or getting a Wordpress developer (plenty around here) to have a look at the issue or getting a developer familiar whatever platform his old custom system is built on to fix that.

 

[paulears]

I have tried Wordpress and I did NOT enjoy it. I am a one-man band and a WYSIWYG interface is what I need - Web Plus, followed by Muse worked exactly as I wanted - you see it grow in real time, press a button and it's live. I don't think I'm a geek, but Wordpress is not what I want.

 

[gpietersz]

I have tried Wordpress and I did NOT enjoy it. I am a one-man band and a WYSIWYG interface is what I need - Web Plus, followed by Muse worked exactly as I wanted - you see it grow in real time, press a button and it's live. I don't think I'm a geek, but Wordpress is not what I want.

Try searching for "static site builder gui"

I cannot reccommend any but the search returns quite a few, and some, like this https://getpublii.com/ look promising.

 

[paulears]

I spent some time with the available tutorials and it seems really limited and not a very flexible app? Lots of features I currently have are not there. With Muse, you can view the site in a number of ways, and customising existing themes is pretty straightforward.

I've found something called Nicepage - which seems to work in a way that could make it a possible - and the templates are well designed and it appears to be free? I'll def have a fiddle with this when I have more time. Thanks.

 

[gpietersz]

I would be interested in hearing how it goes and what is lacking in any products you look at. What does Publii not do, for example?

 

[paulears]

In essence - what I'd like, with Muse and web plus as my history, is the ability to layout on a screen, but have the software also produce the pad and phone versions from the same basic interface, without having to do much in the way of making decisions. I'd like the ability for it to be able to handle galleries of images, with the usual left/right or up/down on screen buttons. I'd like to be able insert html for things like PayPal buttons. I quite like the way you can use frames, but most of all I like to see a hierarchical view of the site with levels and the pathways between them. I like to be able to alter naming schemes for pages and keep track of assets. I need to be able to find out which ones are missing and when a lot of changes happen, I like to be able to see which pages are being changed and which are not. I absolutely hated Dreamweaver, and I've no idea why that was the one Adobe decided was to be kept and Muse dumped - presumably because web developers liked it, which is I suspect who Wordpress is popular. If you do lots of web work, you become familiar with it and effective - I get that totally, but on one of my web sites just shut down, it ran some specialist applications to handle audio file downloads. Files were uploaded, and then when people paid they had a one-time download link that prevented people sharing the links. It worked great for ten years, until the product had it's end of life. Every single time a new product series was added it added between 30 and 50 files. I had to relearn the coding every time - and produce comma separated strings that had to be incrementally added, plus a series of suffix codes that needed to be added to file names of the real files in the real file directory. This was also a Wordpress site because the application worked in Wordpress sites only. I struggled with what was Wordpress and what wasn't because Wordpress requires you to be savvy with how it works and integrates. I never understood it, and most importantly, didn't want to. Things like Wix are too simple, Wordpress is too formulaic. Nothing wrong with that, and of course I appreciate how it gives you access to so much. I'm in the middle ground, I want a clever, simple one - and that's the sticky part. Publii doesn't tick the first impression box but the Nicepage visual first impression does. To be frank, I'll keep going with muse for as long as I can, because it's fast and simple - it works the way I prefer. As a novice in web sites I always believe I'm an expert, but clearly I am a knowledgeable user, I'm not a programmer or developer - that side is of no interest to me at all. WYSIWYG - a lighting product many of my colleagues have used for years, happily - leaves me totally cold. Lighting visualisers have progressed quite a lot, but the faffing around to make them work annoys me just like Wordpress. It's me - I know this, but it doesn't make me unusual.

Serif - who made web plus had a drawing programme - serif draw and I discovered it was great for drawing plans, as scaling (something I used all the time) was so easy - plus it could work with images. Then they scrapped it for a new drawing platform - that didn't do scaling! That was the end of Serif for me. I spent a fortune over the years with them, but then their new direction messed me up totally. That's when Adobe started making much more money from me.

 

[fisicx]

@paulears, when did you last use Wordpress? It’s changed a huge amount in the last couple of years and whilst not quite drag and drop it is pretty much wysiwyg and does most of the things you want. Including a the option to view how the site looks on different devices.

 

[gpietersz]

presumably because web developers liked it, which is I suspect who Wordpress is popular.

The reason Wordpress is popular is that you can get more done with less skill than anything else thanks to the huge number of themes and plugins on top of fairly extensive built in functionality. It allows a designer with limited technical skills to set up quite a sophisticated web site. Use a host that provides a Wordpress installer, install plugins from within wordpress, and use an off the shelf or drag and drop theme and its very quick and easy.

It's me - I know this, but it doesn't make me unusual.

Where you are unusual is wanting to do it in a desktop app. Most people prefer their CMS to run on a server. At a time when people are moving a lot of what they used to do on desktops to "the cloud" (i.e. servers) that is not going to change.

 

[paulears]

I thought I'd give Wordpress a look - I've updated to php 8 on my hosting service - but just discovered one of my websites actually must have had a wordpress version at some point, as the files are still there with a new non-wordpress version over the top. I've been looking at it, but not getting me very keen to be honest. I'll have a play.

 

[antropy]

I thought I'd give Wordpress a look - I've updated to php 8 on my hosting service - but just discovered one of my websites actually must have had a wordpress version at some point, as the files are still there with a new non-wordpress version over the top. I've been looking at it, but not getting me very keen to be honest. I'll have a play.

I've built sites with loads of CMSs over the years as a web developer and I have to say I think WordPress is one of the worst in terms of code quality and security, but you can't deny it's the most popular and therefore has the biggest community which means the most developers and plugins.

Even so, we still avoid it where possible.

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

...I think WordPress is one of the worst in terms of code quality and security

What's the biggest security issue?

This report suggests the problem is not the WP core it's people not applying updates and using dodgy plugins and themes:

Is WordPress secure? Here's what the data says

Is WordPress secure? Read this post for a data-backed look at how WordPress sites get hacked, and whether or not WordPress is actually secure.

kinsta.com

 

[antropy]

This report suggests the problem is not the WP core it's people not applying updates and using dodgy plugins and themes:

Perhaps, but those things happen.

Other systems don't require such frequent updates, and don't get hacked almost immediately when not updated.

Paul.

 

[fisicx]

Other systems don't require such frequent updates, and don't get hacked almost immediately when not updated.

It's like Microsoft and Apple. MS got hacked all the time because the user base was huge compared to Apple.

Wordpress is by far the most popular CMS in the world and has become a much bigger target and will need more frequent security updates.

If you stick to the themes and plugin that come with WP, keep your site updated (use the auto-update option) and manage your security your chances of being hacked are slim. But of course people don't do that. They download any old junk and have 123456 as a password and wonder why their site gets borked.

 

[antropy]

It's like Microsoft and Apple. MS got hacked all the time because the user base was huge compared to Apple.

Wordpress is by far the most popular CMS in the world and has become a much bigger target and will need more frequent security updates.

If you stick to the themes and plugin that come with WP, keep your site updated (use the auto-update option) and manage your security your chances of being hacked are slim. But of course people don't do that. They download any old junk and have 123456 as a password and wonder why their site gets borked.

That is all true, but it doesn't change the fact that it really is a target, and unless you're constantly doing updates (which occasionally ruin the site) you will get hacked.

We use WP for one of our internal intranet type sites, purely so we're familiar with it as it's so popular, but we all dislike it compared to "proper" enterprise CMSs like ConcreteCMS ?

Paul.