what alternatives to Wordpress do I have?

Hi,

I'm looking to move away from Wordpress (it's become too complicated and expensive for me), so I'm looking for alternatives that meet these 4 criteria:

- are fast (this one is actually paramount as google seems to not even look at slow sites anymore)
- have responsive themes
- are free or cheap (the platforms themselves, as well as their themes need to be in the $0 - $20 range, tops!)
- are simple and newbie-friendly, without billions of settings and things you can do with it

I logged into my Direct Admin panel and took a look at the site builders offered via Softaculous, but most of those things are either dead, or not responsive, or not fast.

For example...

Joomla was slow as fuck, it took several seconds to load a page

SitePad (the only site builder that I actually liked at a first glance) seems too basic (I do want simple stuff, but not so simple that I can't customize anything about it lol)

Dotclear looks like a platform from the 1800s

HTMLy doesn't even have multiple themes to choose from... or maybe I didn't find them, I don't know

While the other platforms in there (Textpattern, Pubvana, Nucleaus, etc) have been abandoned "over 2 years ago" as per Softaculous' description

There was also Flatpress that seemed to work, but it still didn't seem like what I'm looking for, so I don't know what else to try now...

I have heard about Drupal and Magento before (although I've never tried them), but I've heard that they are as complex as Wordpress, and I simply don't have the time or patience anymore to learn each theme and plugin separately, or to log in daily into each Wordpress site and update the damn plugins as they're being updated few times a week nowadays, and all of that time consuming crap...

I just want to set up a site in 30-60 minutes, optimize it (speed, SEO, mobile friendliness), throw a few articles at it and then go on my merry way to whatever else I need to do without having to babysit the site and update the plugins each day...

So, what options do I have for this? I remember from previous discussions on the forum people mentioning stuff like Laravel and Oxygen, but I've no idea what those are... Well, I could google them, but I'm too tired at the moment and can't find the mental fortitude after a hard day of work to go through each one of the features of those sites and test them to see what they do.

So, I would love to hear y'all's opinions instead. Which other (preferably static) site builders have you used in the past that are as good, or as close as possible to being as good as Wordpress in terms of customizability, but coming without the chores of constant updates and security monitoring and the rip-off prices that the premium WP themes come with nowadays?

Please let me know, and thanks!

I would use a Tumblr blog, they are a pretty neat option, as you get a whole host of features for free, and the "point your domain premium" I think is cheap. Plus you won't have to worry about firewalls, speed, or uptime, or storage? You can take advantage of the blogging community there, and hashtags. Worth a look defo. I setup my main blog to be on tumblr for my brand I'm promoting, and i only got a few likes but i only just started, and uploaded a few pics.

Panther28 said:

I would use a Tumblr blog, they are a pretty neat option, as you get a whole host of features for free, and the "point your domain premium" I think is cheap. Plus you won't have to worry about firewalls, speed, or uptime, or storage? You can take advantage of the blogging community there, and hashtags. Worth a look defo. I setup my main blog to be on tumblr for my brand I'm promoting, and i only got a few likes but i only just started, and uploaded a few pics.

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sounds interesting...

What costs can I expect from Tumblr? Also, can I change themes, and are there plugins (especially SEO plugins to optimize the blog for google)?

tazarbm said:

sounds interesting...

What costs can I expect from Tumblr? Also, can I change themes, and are there plugins (especially SEO plugins to optimize the blog for google)?

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I think its like $5 bucks for the premium, i'm not sure if there is anything to optimise, you put data in straight away, and its in the right place, plus its pretty easy to know what goes where.





Thats what you get, a bit more than 5 bucks, but still looks worth it, if you want to rebrand a .com or just start an easy website. You get a whole community, that you can quickly engage with that are actually "engaging!"

Panther28 said:

I think its like $5 bucks for the premium, i'm not sure if there is anything to optimise, you put data in straight away, and its in the right place, plus its pretty easy to know what goes where.

View attachment 472911

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Thats what you get, a bit more than 5 bucks, but still looks worth it, if you want to rebrand a .com or just start an easy website. You get a whole community, that you can quickly engage with that are actually "engaging!"

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cool! I'm sold

WP is going back to the past, and I was looking at Ghost CMS a few years ago. Didn't get the time, but I have heard good things about Ghost. I did some more digging and found some cool projects worth checking out. I would suggest you check these out.:
Strapi
Publii
Bludit
Grav

V said:

WP is going back to the past, and I was looking at Ghost CMS a few years ago. Didn't get the time, but I have heard good things about Ghost. I did some more digging and found some cool projects worth checking out. I would suggest you check these out.:
Strapi
Publii
Bludit
Grav

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oh yeah, it was Ghost, not Oxygen like I said in my OP, that I was thinking about, but I confused it with Oxygen...

Thanks for the recommendations, I'll check them out tomorrow as right now I can barely see what I'm typing... Cheers!

For me, HTMLy was too barebones, but Grav hit the sweet spot, fast, flexible, and I can throw together content without babysitting anything.

It depends if you want to go deep on tech skills or if you want a ready made solution
For example Astro has a lot of themes, but its not straight forward by any means.

If you are looking for a cloud CMS, check Duda, Tilda or Webflow (all 3 have free tiers)
Do you know that Tumblr is now from the same guys from WordPress (Automattic) ?

Also the new WP contender is called Statamic. Also free (the pro version is kind of weird, $275 once, and the $65 per year).

Anyway WP seems to be still the king of CMS for now Maybe Payload will surge in a couple of years, not sure yet, no plugins, no themes still a way to go.

SirLouen said:

It depends if you want to go deep on tech skills or if you want a ready made solution

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ready made solution

SirLouen said:

If you are looking for a cloud CMS, check Duda, Tilda or Webflow (all 3 have free tiers)

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I'll check them out tomorrow, but I have a feeling that I won't like them, simply because I dislike the cloud technology, so I have a feeling that I will instinctively reject your recommendations

But I still appreciate you mentioning them, don't worry! I'll check every single one of the options that's been mentioned in here tomorrow (actually, I already created a Tumblr account, and I also checked Strapi and Publii from the previous recommendations)

SirLouen said:

Do you know that Tumblr is now from the same guys from WordPress (Automattic) ?

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nope, had no idea! But is this bad?

I mean... if they're going to turn it into another rip-off business like Wordpress had become I will definitely move onto something else. But I'd wager that it will take them at least 10 years to get there, and by then I will have probably checked out 50 more site builders and hopefully I will have found and loved at least 5-6 of them, so I don't think this worries me too much

SirLouen said:

Also the new WP contender is called Statamic.

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never heard of it! But again, thanks for the tip, keep 'em coming

SirLouen said:

Also free (the pro version is kind of weird, $275 once, and the $65 per year).

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so another cash grab... ok then, I'm not interested in them anymore...

Also, I am willing to guess that these prices are for single site license, right?

SirLouen said:

Anyway WP seems to be still the king of CMS for now Maybe Payload will surge in a couple of years, not sure yet, no plugins, no themes still a way to go.

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when it comes to customization it's definitely the king. I am not even disputing this...

But it's become expensive as fuck...

Like, for example, I've been out of the SEO game for nearly 5 years, and when I stopped it 5 years ago there were premium themes and plugins with yearly subscriptions, but most of them weren't.

But now (about 2-3 hours ago) I checked all of the big / popular ones that I used to love and use, and absolutely every single one of them is a yearly (when it's not a monthly) subscription.

And the worst part is not even that. If they offered it for $5 a month or $19-29 year I would have let it go. But nooo, these fuckers are not happy with $5 per month, the cheapest price that I saw was $29 per year (for single site license, of course, if you want more sites you have to shed $100s or $1000s), while the other themes that I checked were as "low" as $59 per month, or $249 per year (again, for single site, or for up to 10 site licenses), I didn't even dare checking the unlimited site license because it would have probably been $4999 per year or something. This is beyond insane, absolutely all of them have lost the plot and the grip on reality....

And I saved the best worst for last: despite of these "fuck you" prices, the "poor" greedy developers are still offering you only 1 year of technical support and UPDATES for most of these themes.

Like, you give them $100 or $1000 per month / year to use their themes and the first day that you're not paying the updates are not available anymore, and good luck operating a Wordpress site that's not secure and up-to-date. At that point you might as well use nulled themes.

Just how insane is that, dude? You tell me, because I always brag about what a cheapskate I am. I've said it many times that I'm "careful with the money" as Elaine has rightly said in Seinfeld. But you, the other people who are happy spenders, how do you find this price model of fees on top of more fees, and on top of even more fees for a single Wordpress theme? If you think this is normal then I'm not afraid to say that you are part of the reason for why we got here (you keep supporting these greedy that can't even shit or breathe without asking for money, and not for normal money either, but for truck loads of it)...

Anyway, I'm personally done with Wordpress... I still wish good luck to Festinger and I wished that he comes back but I'm not using Wordpress anymore, it's time to give other platforms a chance... unless they want $100s a month for one, single site license theme too, of course. In that case, I'll learn coding and make my own site LOL

tazarbm said:

- are fast (this one is actually paramount as google seems to not even look at slow sites anymore)
- have responsive themes
- are free or cheap (the platforms themselves, as well as their themes need to be in the $0 - $20 range, tops!)
- are simple and newbie-friendly, without billions of settings and things you can do with it

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Except for the limited theme availability, HTMLy seems to be the most appropriate choice for your requirements. I use it myself and am very satisfied with it, especially with the latest updates (custom fields, 2FA, etc.).

You can also look at Bludit, unfortunately almost all metadata are stored in just one file (pages.php as a database), prone to file corruption with intense reading and writing.

Depending on how many sites you build per year.

I am using Envato Elements Template kit (200 bucks per year) - I only use Hello Themes + Site Templates (Elementor Free) and it solves most of my design needs.

Not cheap by any means, but I like the idea of having access to different themes (a lot of crap in there btw) + plugins + graphic pack with a yearly subs.

What's the main feature you looking for?

NoBS said:

Except for the limited theme availability, HTMLy seems to be the most appropriate choice for your requirements. I use it myself and am very satisfied with it, especially with the latest updates (custom fields, 2FA, etc.).

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I'll check HTMLy again, as I only superficially looked at it. Thanks!

Peter Ngo said:

What's the main feature you looking for?

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none in particular, I want all of them. The price is important, the simplicity yet customizability are important, and I definitely don't want to have to log in daily (because it will be daily, that's where we've got with Wordpress) into 10+ sites to update plugins and themes.

So, all of these matter equally for me.

But I got a few good recommendations from the forum, so for now I think I'm good, I really like how Publii looks like, and I'm gonna look again at Grav and HTMLy, so for now it's OK

tazarbm said:

nope, had no idea! But is this bad?

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Tumblr is not intrinsically bad. But is cloud technology as well, like Duda and Tilda. If I had to choose between these 3, I would choose the latter.

If you really want a self-hosted alternative to WordPress and ou don't care a shit about Open Source Licenses, then Statamic is your game changer.

But sincerely, for me WordPress is identical to Statamic.

WP Is open sourced (yes), an theoretically it can be forked, but noone has the bullocks. There is an owner (Automattic) that controls it like if it was business sourced. So, from a pratical perspective, those who praise WP, could perfectly praise Statamic despite of not being GPL or whatever shit.

And technically Statamic completely blows away WordPress and the theme/plugin community is growing very well. If it was real opensourced I would have already fully switched. But its not a hindrance for most, specially for business-oriented guys

Also another interesting thing is that in WP all plugins must be GPL licensed. In Statamic you can business source your plugin code if you want. So there cannot exist legally Deleted member 752298 for Statamic

SirLouen said:

Tumblr is not intrinsically bad. But is cloud technology as well, like Duda and Tilda. If I had to choose between these 3, I would choose the latter.

If you really want a self-hosted alternative to WordPress and ou don't care a shit about Open Source Licenses, then Statamic is your game changer.

But sincerely, for me WordPress is identical to Statamic.

WP Is open sourced (yes), an theoretically it can be forked, but noone has the bullocks. There is an owner (Automattic) that controls it like if it was business sourced. So, from a pratical perspective, those who praise WP, could perfectly praise Statamic despite of not being GPL or whatever shit.

And technically Statamic completely blows away WordPress and the theme/plugin community is growing very well. If it was real opensourced I would have already fully switched. But its not a hindrance for most, specially for business-oriented guys

Also another interesting thing is that in WP all plugins must be GPL licensed. In Statamic you can business source your plugin code if you want. So there cannot exist legally Deleted member 752298 for Statamic

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I'm not interested in either Wordpress or Statamic, despite of how nicely you've dressed them. For me WP is a closed chapter for at least the next year, I have better things to do with my time then sift through blocks, settings and log in daily to update plugins...

But I do appreciate your input! I might not agree with you on this particular topic, but with others I do agree, so keep 'em coming

tazarbm said:

I have heard about Drupal

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NO !

Forget Drupal right away.

I used Drupal for 13 years.

I loved Drupal 6 and 7.

I tested Drupal 10. It's a bloody nightmare, with a steep learning curve. I'm going to migrate from Drupal 7. I naturally thought I'd stick with this tool, so I tried Drupal 10. It made me depressed.

I moved everything to WordPress except for one site.

Take a look at Backdrop CMS, which is a fork of Drupal 7, but simpler.

It's open-source, so you don't have to pay anything except for your hosting.

In terms of SEO, it's still in its infancy.

The themes are naturally responsive, though.

Alpha1404 said:

Forget Drupal right away.

I used Drupal for 13 years.

I loved Drupal 6 and 7.

I tested Drupal 10. It's a bloody nightmare, with a steep learning curve. I'm going to migrate from Drupal 7. I naturally thought I'd stick with this tool, so I tried Drupal 10. It made me depressed.

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Sorry to hear it (but at the same time your firmness and frustrations are so funny )

Ok, not gonna even look at Drupal anymore, thanks for letting me know...

Alpha1404 said:

Take a look at Backdrop CMS, which is a fork of Drupal 7, but simpler.

It's open-source, so you don't have to pay anything except for your hosting.

In terms of SEO, it's still in its infancy.

The themes are naturally responsive, though.

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I will check it out at some point, just not yet as right now I am keenly interested in trying out Publii and a few other ones. But I do appreciate the recommendation, thanks!

tazarbm said:

Sorry to hear it (but at the same time your firmness is so funny )

Ok, not gonna even look at Drupal anymore, thanks for letting me know...


I will check it out at some point, just not yet as right now I am keenly interested in trying out Publii and a few other ones. But I do appreciate the recommendation, thanks!

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The Drupal developers decided to add Symfony to the stack, something that no one knows how to use natively. Whereas Drupal 7 was pure PHP. The only difficulty was understanding the functions. Once you got past that hurdle, the rest was easy.

Now you get to Drupal 10, and Symfony starts insulting you. And when it's not Symfony, it's MySQL, because those idiots decided to change the table schema. I feel sorry for the developers who have to deal with the migrations.



You're welcome for the recommendation. If you have more specific questions about Backdrop CMS, feel free to send me a message. I've written technical documentation on it (and I've done a Drupal 7 -> Backdrop CMS migration).

Alpha1404 said:

If you have more specific questions about Backdrop CMS, feel free to send me a message. I've written technical documentation on it (and I've done a Drupal 7 -> Backdrop CMS migration).

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Only if I don't forget as I have a lot of things on my mind at the moment. Thanks for the offer

There is none. I have researched it extensively, every single "alternative" is lacking in one or other direction.