Round and round

Dizzy

05.04.2023

Ever felt like you are going in circles trying to advance in your skills and experience but find yourself back to where you began and not sure if the last lap was actually a progression?

After experimenting with CMS’s (Content Management Systems that add content easily, templated and allow everyone to edit and update with ease) I kind of gave in and settled on WordPress, but perhaps because it is free?

I had discovered Elementor and enjoyed actually designing and creating websites with this plugin. So I updated a couple of my own websites and everything worked great, I liked the designs. But. .

The whole system around WordPress is really annoying.
Hosting – free but if you choose a shared hosting (cheap) then even a small website crawls most of the time. When you upgrade the hosting – because you will have to as your site grows, it is expensive.
Plugins – Elementor not free and I am not sure if it is worth it now that WordPress has the Blocks, plus so many plugins just to function! Backups, social media connections, newsletters, SEO, etc.
Updates – Urgh Again! When you think you have everything updated and working an “issue” is found with one of the plugins that will compromise your site, so you update again.
I am not sure it is worth it to recommend a WordPress site? I am happy to help anyone who needs one ‘managed’ or re-designed but I would recommend another solution.

So this is where I was recently, breaking out of the WordPress circle of updates thinking I need to go back to basics – HTML, CSS, JavaScript. But wait what if I need to add. . . a blog, a shopping cart, a client updatable area, a members area? Was I really going to hand code all this? No and it is crazy not to take advantage of – alternative to WordPress – CMS’s that already have this built in.

But which one to use? I went back to my CMS reference I created before – it is useful! – and re-visited them. I do use Automad for one of my websites and it is very clever, but a little tricky for me to do all that I want to do, I do not feel that I am in control of the layout or how it all stitches together but that is probably my level of php.

So, for now. . . I have chosen to use Kirby, it seems to have all the features or plugins I need, it is not free but reasonable considering the work put into its creation and support, without feeling like they are taking advantage or signing you up on a cheap entry only to pile on the extras or make you add support fees. Plus it is a flat file based CMS (so no database to add, slow down the site or backup) and should be fast, easy to backup and upgrade or move.

I will let you know how I get on, although there are many good resources already, but sometimes we need a different perspective – from a designer perhaps – to get it.

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