WordPress has been the dominant Content Management System (CMS) for over a decade. But several months ago, its main corporate sponsor withdrew 98% of their contribution hours. So I started wondering: Is WordPress still the right CMS for me? Or is it time to switch?
And since countless other website owners wondered the same thing, I started this series. I did in-depth comparisons of WordPress to Statamic, Webflow, and Craft CMS. I also put research time into comparisons with Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and others.
A few weeks ago, WordPress’s main corporate sponsor announced that they were resuming regular contributions, returning the pace of development to normal.
That marks a good time to reassess whether I want to stick with WordPress and reassess this series. I decided that I’m going to stick with WordPress.
Why?
Ultimately, it’s the ecosystem.
WordPress has some significant weaknesses. There are a lot of things that really should be in their core offering by now but aren’t, and that their best competitors offer in core. And their core page builder doesn’t come close to Webflow’s.
But I decided to stay because of the ecosystem. I need a pretty broad spectrum of features to power a diverse array of websites. I need a lot of third-party tools, but with those, I can always get done what I need to do in WordPress. I can’t find any alternative that enables me to do everything I need to do.
This could change in the future. Part of staying in this industry is staying on top of future developments. And there are promising alternatives on the horizon. But for now, WordPress is the only ecosystem that can do everything I need it to do.