Data from Google Trends noted search requests around the website builder boomed in October 2024, especially on October 8, where it reached a peak score of 100.
The spike in interest signals a shift in user behavior, indicating an active search for options which align more closely with user expectations around performance, control, and transparency.
Is there a better alternative though?
I was pretty disappointed at the options for a FOSS CMS when I last looked a year or so ago. Ghost looked good but is held back by the lack of a genuine plugin system.
I moved to a static site generator, Hugo in this case, because I felt that WordPress was too much for a simple website with some articles.
If I were building a larger site, I’d probably use Drupal.
It’s a bit of a departure from the “blogware” mindset though. You’re not managing “posts” and “static pages”. You’re managing stuff. …Which can manifest itself as pages or posts. Different kinds of content, different kinds of fields. Blogware gets hacky if you are posting anything but pages and posts, but in Drupal, every type of content is equally tweakable.
WordPress itself isn’t a problem. Leach away my FOSS fans. Heck, customization up the wazoo. For a developer, it’s really really easy to make it your own. A competent developer can be taught WordPress CMS and understand what’s under the hood within a few weeks.
Contributing back to WordPress? Getting harder and harder with Matt being the biggest barrier.
It’s becoming one of those scenarios like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Fuck those companies. But I’ll build apps on your platform and play by your stupid ass rules to earn a living while also giving you the finger.
There’s a fork of Wordpress which still has the old editor, which looks fine to me. I don’t know anything about the people behind it though, and haven’t yet tried it myself.
https://www.classicpress.net/
It’s pretty solid.
Just learn HTML?
/s
Drupal has been the main competitor for decades, but the biggest difference is that it’s not blog-style with a timeline of posts, it’s nodes and categories.