WordPress 'specialists' love to proclaim that 27 per cent of the web is powered by WordPress (which is incorrect anyway - https://rarst.net/wordpress/... ).

However, that doesn't mean it's the best CMS, like many try to suggest. It just means a huge percentage of websites out there are using the wrong tool for the job.

Entirely correct, but it's the only way that WordPress companies can survive by spinning lies and create huge legacy messes everywhere. And Drupal belongs to the same bucket.

What do you have to say about windows?

What do you suggest as an alternative 'better' CMS?

@biscuit There is no 'better' CMS, so to speak. Each project has its own needs and KPIs. The best CMS is the one that meets those needs and KPIs. Sometimes it's WordPress. Most of the time though, it probably isn't.

Often you'll find that the decision of which CMS to use is based on what suits the person building the website. And I use the term 'building' deliberately. Because many of those choosing WordPress are doing so because they can't code and they have access to tools that enable them to build sites without knowing what they're actually doing.

@frontendben come on now buddy, If you are going to rant about how bad a product / service is, you are going to have to be prepared to offer an alternative.

Telling people WordPress is generally not the answer, but the right answer "depends" (and nothing more), is just a waste of time.

List some options for the guy, and say what they are good for

@practiseSafeHex Haha. I will. I'll list some examples at lunch time (in about 4-5 hours). Promise.

#AnswerTheQuestion

https://www.devrant.io/rants/388302

Umbraco?

Just leaving a comment here for when @frontendben posts his list

Me too

Alternatives include;
Ghost
Jekkyl
Hexo
Grav
Umbraco

As a static site generator, Jekyll is bloody fantastic by the way

4 to 5 hours are passed.

Here it comes. It'll be broken down because of the limits on the post lengths.

Right. Sorry about not getting this up at lunchtime. I had to shoot back from the office to let the dog out and didn't get a chance to finish off writing this up. This isn't going to be comprehensive, and it's going to be limited to the CMSs I've used (for example, I've never used any .NET CMSs so apologies if I miss them out).

So. This will be a long one. I'm going try and break it down by CMS type (simply because there's too many options out there).

Static (and I don't mean static generator. I mean pure, handcoded with no database)
Small biz & tradespeople. Primarily get business from referrals. Website is simply there as a brochure and isn't updated more than once every 3-6 months, if at all.

It simply isn't worth building a database or CMS into these sorts of sites. The time it would take a dev to git pull, edit, commit, push and deploy is far less over the average life of the site than it would take to implement a CMS and maintain/keep secure any database.

Not worth the hassle for dynamic content sites (blogs), but you can split the responsibility for different parts of sites between static and a blogging CMS.

Static site generators (Jekyll, Middleman etc)
Developer blogs or blogs the developer maintains. I know they're amazing, but they're only really user friendly to devs who are fairly experienced. Also, they're not great for huge sites/busy sites where the rebuild can take a site offline for a significant period of time.

Flatfile (Grav/Statamic etc)
Great for situations where you need lightening fast sites and don't want the headache of a database. Have limitations in terms of content processing, though Statamic in particular does well at scale. Not really something I'd recommend unless there's a specific need for avoiding a database.

Business decisions that might guide that are security concerns, for example. However, you then have the issue of data being stored – potentially – as plain text. Like I said, only really useful in some situations.

Cost of implementing – especially if you don't work with them often (i.e. time to get your head around them) can make them costly to implement.

Tag-based small CMSs (Perch/Couch CMS/)
Great for retrofitting existing HTML sites with a CMS or building small sites. Perch is my personal favourite. If you've never used a tag-based CMS, they work by using tags to hook just what you want to be editable into a CMS. They don't mess with your markup or output.

Great for when you want to get the benefit of handcoding everyline of HTML or make use of a framework like Foundation/Bootstrap/Bourbon without having to fight with the template output of other CMSs.

Also work really well with design-based tools like Adobe Muse in being able to add functionality to sites build using visual tools.

Business benefit: Lightening fast (most of my Perch sites hit 99/100 on Pingdom Tools tests), ability to control every aspect of markup means extremely SEO friendly tools and often the CMSs are extremely user friendly.

Template-based small CMSs (Processwire/ModX)
Great if you plan on templating everything in a site, but kind of defeats the purpose of having a small CMS in terms of minimising screwing around hooking in a site.

Modern Content Management Frameworks (Perch Runway/Craft)
These are amazing tools if you're looking to build a large site with a lot of different content that aren't necessarily just blogs.

These two are my go to for larger sites with complex needs and requirements.

Blogging CMSs (WordPress/Ghost)
These excel at their core purpose – blogging and media publications. However, WordPress in particular is expensive to maintain and keep secure. Not an issue if all you're using it for is a blog, or you're a media organisation.

NB for WordPress 'specialists'. I don't care how many plugins you have that make it look and act like a 'real' CMS. It's still a blogging platform. The WordPress Foundation and Automattic both recognise this.

It only became commonly used because it was in the right place at the right time and was most people's first experience of editing content online. It was then bastardised and stretched beyond its original purpose to manage blog content because people wanted to be able to edit the rest of their sites as easily.

Self Hosted Ecommerce (Magento/Opencart/Prestashop/Bigcommerce/Woocommerce)
Complex, headache inducing, but often hugely powerful and extendable. Watch out for some solutions' issues when it comes to security, database set ups and just god damn strange fucking coding decisions and complex code for the sake of showing off rather than making my job as a front-ender easier (I'm looking at you Magento 2).

Often need large teams and come with huge expenses in development, addons and maintenance.

Hosted Ecommerce (Shopify)
Great when you don't want to worry about server or security stuff. Also excels when it comes to cross-channel stock management thanks to its EPOS stuff. Limitations come in from its use of liquid and the inability to run it locally – cowboy coding all the way.

I'm curious as to recommendations, too.

Personally, if I'm using a CMS, I prefer something based on a framework I know, like Laravel or Rails.

So something like OctoberCMS (https://octobercms.com), Spina (http://www.spinacms.com), or Refinery CMS (http://www.refinerycms.com)

Headless Ecommerce (Motlin)
Brilliant for having complete control of your site, but you do have issues with being beholden to their feature set if you can't extend them. Not got too much experience with this.

Legacy Content Management Frameworks (Drupal/Joomla)
Just don't. These were great once. They've since been surpassed by far more modern, specialist frameworks.

Still waiting for that answer

I liked orchard. Anonymous-ish comments out of the box. http://orchardazure.azurewebsites.net/...

Or maybe it was just this theme.

We've built our own thin CMS layer as a rails engine, paired with the godmin gem were finally kicking some primitive WordPress ass. 👌

@frontendben that was an awesome rundown, thanks!

@Beneris youre obviously not best ben. Ben replied multiple times above your post

Doubters be rekt here me thinks

Jekyll generation started to be slow at some point. Which is why I migrated to Hugo. I've also used Grav for some side projects, I must say I was quite impressed. I will use it more I'm sure.