Phil Thane ✅
Until I retired I ran my own website on Wordpress. When I retired I closed that but got involved with a local boat club and helped set up their site on WP. Left that a few years ago and someone else runs it now. Consequently although I've noticed some disagreements about WordPress on here I haven't really been paying attention. What's the situation? I'm thinking of creating a new blog, is WP still a decent option? What's the TL:DR version of events? #wordpress #blogging
Mar 7 at 7:18pmWeb
Show threadTiggyMar 7

@pthane

I had a wordpress free site for years. Then after I ignored suggestions I paid to upgrade it, I found wp advertising my site address for sale.
Some dodgy company took another author's site, kept her books up but added a load of stuff she wouldn't support to the front page.

Show threadPhil Thane ✅Mar 7
@tiggy I think the techies here would call that sub-optimal. What I'm contemplating though is a bit different, using a cheap UK based hosting company that provides space on a virtual server, and a Cpanel dashboard sheet I can set up WP
Show threadRyan SechrestMar 7
@pthane @tiggy I think a self-hosted WP site is still a decent option, especially if it's a platform you're already comfortable with. That said, I switched my personal blog from #WordPress to #Ghost a few years ago because I wanted a platform that prioritized publishing. For example, you can customize WordPress themes and sites to no end, making it easy to get distracted with choice overload, but Ghost themes are generally pretty straightforward, letting you focus on writing.
Show threadRené SeindalMar 7

@pthane

The main problem with WordPress is an infantile type named Matt.

Show threadClare HooleyMar 7
@pthane the problem was Matt - now it seems to have gone quiet as he’s learnt to actually keep quieter, not really heard much more since early 2025, when we had to deal with all this (best summary around but still a fair lot of it): https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d
Also see
https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/fire-matt
The Mullenweg/WPE Thing

The Mullenweg/WPE Thing. GitHub Gist: instantly share code, notes, and snippets.

Gist
Show threadBuck MoonMar 8
@pthane so the most suscinct summary is that automatic, the company that stewards wordpress and is responsible for most of its development has been doing more and more shady stuff.
As a result a lot of people are feeling more reluctant to recommend it as a platform.
Show threadfrank goossens 🇧🇪🇪🇺Mar 8

@pthane

1. WordPress has a visual page editor now which has pros (you can create really nice pages without having to "do" code) and cons (it's technically complex, is JavaScript-heavy and can occasionally break)
2. In the WordPress ecosystem there has been uproar when Automattic (Matt Mullenweg's company) used his founder- / owner-powers to go to war with WP Engine about money.

Show threadSimon BrookeMar 8

@pthane TLDR is that one of the original authors of #Wordpress, who himself owns one of the big Wordpress hosting sites, tried to strong arm other wordpress hosting sites into paying him money. The noise has died down, so I imagine he failed.

As a software snob I consider Wordpress poorly engineered and ludicrously over-complex for running a blog; from a technical point of view there are hundreds of better solutions. But it is well known and user friendly.

Show threadPhil Thane ✅Mar 8
@simon_brooke I'm currently tinkering with a very basic html only site. Something I've done occasionally over the last 30 years without ever getting past beginner level.
Show threadSimon BrookeMar 8

@pthane I use #Cryogen for all my essentially static sites. It's simple and (fairly) elegant and suits me, but you need to be tolerant of a command line, and there are, as I say, literally hundreds of alternatives.

http://cryogenweb.org/

Cryogen: Simple static sites

Cryogen is a simple static site generator built with Clojure and designed by Carmen La. It's shipped on Leiningen so setup is simple and fuss free.

Show threadNils Pickert 🚂Mar 9
@pthane @simon_brooke switched from WordPress to static since some time. I use Hugo to generate the HTML from markdown, works well, but if you want to adapt something in the templates, it has a learning curve.