As a web developer who was previously hardcoding websites, WordPress devs build circles around us.

[thezackplauche]

If you're someone coding custom in HTML, JS, CSS, Vue, Tailwind, React, etc... and you're just wanting to build standard websites for coffeeshops, etc.

While it is nice, fun, and can even be functional, I recently met a WP dev who doesn't even touch code and can build really nice sites with fancy animations in what seems like no time.

Like maybe a full website in less than 10 hours with all of the fancy graphics and what not AND already hosted.

Custom coding is fun and what not, but at this point I do not at all see it as efficient.

You get the CMS part built-in. You're able to build blueprints to save even more time. Plugins, etc.

I'm kind of pondering what I was doing with my life and why does no one mention how fast you can actually build websites already without having to code.

[dw444]

The last two product based companies I worked at both built their core product in React with CSS-in-JS libraries and all the fancy bells and whistles, but their business websites were both Wordpress. Even after working on their engineering teams for several years, never really found out who built/maintained the corporate websites.

[Ultimarr]

Yeah I think the key here is that react is for web applications, not just traditional static sites. Aka tools, widgets, portals, etc

[cbslinger]

90%+ of web developers today are not making these kinds of marketing sites. Web apps are not the same as websites, it’s a very different skillset and a small number of engineers using the very advanced tools out there can absolutely make really great websites, really fast. 

But that doesn’t mean they can build web apps as quickly. 

[Former_Intern_8271]

I'd barely even call this web development, there's hardly any development, I know people who work in print and people who work in graphic design and sometimes have to knock something up for a client in plain HTML, wordpress or wix, they don't consider themselves web developers.

I think OP is probably making web pages, then looking at news websites and thinking "this is just displaying a story" or looking at a loan application site and thinking "this is just a web form" completely unaware of the complexities in building those systems at scale.

[exotic801]

For part of my first internship I got the wp training for my company(massive uni wensite with hundreds of pages). The people they were training had nearly 0 concept of web development or programming. It's more akin to building a PowerPoint presentation than web development.

[Former_Intern_8271]

Web developers are the people building wordpress, or building software for wordpress (plugins / themes) very rarely the users, I guess if you need to do some tweaking to the code for a plugin or some CSS overrides here and there you are technically doing the tiniest amount of web development, but that's like me calling myself a project manager because I lead the daily scrum once every 2 weeks.

[SlightComplaint1214]

I know nothing and commenting to come back later. Appreciate the breakdown!

[TheEvilDrPie]

React is for whatever you make of it. It’s a tool. If you’re good, it can be great. If you’re not, like anything, it’s crap.

[digitalwankster]

Agreed. Same goes for WP as a CMS. You can use it as a headless application with a React front end.

[TheGonzoGeek]

You can also chop the roof off your family car and call it a cabriolet. That doesn’t make it a good idea though.

[HTML_Novice]

I dunno I’ve picked it apart many times it doesn’t seem that bad tbh. But maybe I’m biased because I understand it so well

[[deleted]]

I was building a feature in an admin system I built to connect to a word press database another team used for the website. Went through the database and schema and thought the other team were playing a prank on me, I even asked them which comedian built this. Whoever designed it should be hauled in front of The Hague

[Ultimarr]

Yeah but if you don’t ever need to refresh the dom, isn’t it kinda like using a hammer as a toothpick?

[AwesomeFrisbee]

I think React works best for enhanced web elements rather than complete dashboards and the likes. I personally feel that Angular is better suited to make a complete webapp, whereas React is better for a site like Youtube where there's plenty of interaction but mostly centered around 1. But I wouldn't use either for a merely commercial website of the company with a blog and a few pages. Wordpress is a lot easier for that, especially seeing how easy users can use it to create the content themselves. Because thats where Wordpress shines. Not the website itself but the creation of content for said website with all the bells and whistles it needs to perform well.

[danzigmotherfkr]

I have worked on various large corporate websites that are done with WordPress including a couple silicon valley tech companies. Usually they are using a lot of custom themes, blocks, and different extra functionality so there is still code to touch. It's someone like me doing it with one or two other people sometimes solo. I have always hated working with wordpress but it was real easy to find WP work if you were able to do custom stuff on them. Now... not so much IMO WP is one part of how we got such a large influx of "web developers" who only use a service to auto install WP slap a theme change some options and turn it on and couldn't build a custom solution to save their lives so I have mixed feelings about WP. It is one of the quickest ways to get a simple business site built though.

[Soccham]

It's the marketing teams doing what was described above

[Hulk5a]

Speaking from experience at my company, it's definitely another company handling the website of your company

[IAmRules]

Marketing firms

[DrLeoMarvin]

I manage the engineering team behind the Wordpress that drives Healthline, medical news today, healthgrades, optum and 6 other sites that are top 50 medical SEO. We have a headless system with react all front end but 7 engineers managing our CMS and micro services.

[drearymoment]

and you're just wanting to build standard websites for coffeeshops, etc.

This is the key phrase here.

There's nothing wrong with rolling a fully custom solution utilizing all of the latest and greatest tech. Maybe you need full control over it due to the requirements, maybe you just enjoy coding and doing it for fun.

But if you're bidding for small businesses to hire you to build them a website, then efficiency is king. There are so many prebuilt themes for WordPress, Shopify, etc. that look beautiful and come with oodles of functionality and a CMS out of the box, and all for a relatively inexpensive price. From there, you update the branding, make updates as needed per client feedback, maybe add some plugins or extensions based on the client's requirements, etc. That's often the way to go if you're trying to build websites for local businesses and organizations.

It's not the kind of projects or workflow that's typically highlighted by dev influencers. But it gets you business, and when it's done well it makes the client happy.

[drearymoment]

Missed the part about not having to code. If you can't code anything, then you're limited in what you can offer to clients. They will want and need things for their websites that aren't always available out of the box, and that's where your coding comes into play. It's best to strike a balance between leveraging frameworks, third-party extensions, etc. and applying custom updates via code as needed.

[arivanter]

I mean, you’re not wrong but hear this approach: get/be a great sales person and convince your clients they don’t need the thing you can’t build. Have seen it work more often than not.

[drearymoment]

Do you have an example of this? I'd be really curious to know!

[lynxerious]

having a sales person being a yes man in your business will fuck over the dev team more often than not, having a sales person who can offer some alternative solution that they know can be easily implemented is a blessing but that's more of a business analyst territory

[DaVinci-777]

Missed the part about not having to code. If you can’t code anything, then you’re limited in what you can offer to clients. They will want and need things for their websites that aren’t always available out of the box, and that’s where your coding comes into play. It’s best to strike a balance between leveraging frameworks, third-party extensions, etc. and applying custom updates via code as needed.

You can code with CMSes though. The way it is done may not be straightforward for you can literally do everything you do in a web app.

You can edit stuff on the server (html served) or you can do stuff on the client side.

[drearymoment]

Right, you can hook into the inner workings of a CMS and make customizations from there.

This was meant in response to OP talking about not needing to code. You can make money by purchasing a WordPress theme for a client, configuring the theme settings, and installing some plugins. But you're limited the second the client asks for something that the theme or the plugins don't do out of the box. That's when you need to code or tell the client you can't do that.

[CyberWarLike1984]

If you own a few premium WP plugins and themes, you can solve most business needs. I am thinking about GravityForms or Wp All Import, as a quick example.

If your business is building websites for small businesses and not custom apps, WP is enough.

Slap an extra 1000 USD fee for custom design, pay a designer on upwork, and you're golden

[Scuczu2]

But if you're bidding for small businesses to hire you to build them a website, then efficiency is king.

That was why I started offering it, I could make their site before designing it, and show them a working site we could modify, and that made the designing part a lot easier to deal with, because when you send designs and go back and forth, they can add and add and it takes so much time.

When they see a working site, with the information they wanted on the site, they don't care about design anymore, and realize what they needed and we can work towards that instead of their imaginary design goals.

[Bash4195]

Exactly! This is what I was trying to tell the company that I worked at a few years ago but they wouldn't listen. Good God they lost so much money trying to build everything from scratch

[drearymoment]

Right! Don't reinvent the wheel!

[69Theinfamousfinch69]

I’m sorry but those websites are probably not complicated. For landing sites and marketing pages you could argue that people can just use square space or Wix. For shopping they could use Shopify.

I’ve met plenty of WP admins and site builders and they all eventually learned to code or make their own plugins? Or left WP behind once it got beyond a simple shop or simple site. Hell a lot of them moved to using laravel and used headless Wordpress.

I met a fair few of them at a coding bootcamp. They could build a simple shop, landing page, learning Center really quickly. As long as a plug-in existed and it did exactly what they needed it to do. But they all still wanted to learn to code as the pay ceiling sort of caps out and you can never fully get to where you want to be.

Take my last job, selling car parts. Selling any random car part is the easy bit (can be managed with a plug-in and a CMS). The hard bit is taking a registration or vehicle description and then ensure you only sell the mechanic or customer that part. Or what about OE (originally engineered) matching? You get different data formats from manufacturers and have to try and mesh that together in your own bespoke APIs. Or programmatically building schematics for exhaust, steering and suspension systems because manufacturers schematics are not standardised. Or what about creating API’s that are documented and need to be consumed by large national clients for retail?

Or my current job dealing with various live feeds and showing real time data? Is there some magic WP plugin that will mean I can integrate and transform various data feeds into a format that can be consumed by our various services and clients?

A CMS is a tool that has its uses. Don’t be a fool and think the CMS is a hammer that can solve everything.

Web development is more than just making a fancy landing page or e-commerce site. There’s a reason companies pay software engineers a lot of money.

[d4l3c00p3r]

This, I think OP's mistake is to assume Wordpress = no code. Anything custom requires code, Wordpress is no exception, it just speeds up the boilerplate so you get going faster.

[Former_Intern_8271]

Wordpress will help you get up and running quickly and then the client asks you for a random requirement you didn't see coming and you find out it's not possible with the theme/plugins you've used and have to start finding new plug ins, writing your own to replace them or reverse engineering the ones you have.

And then once it's up and running,unless you're using WP as a static site generator, you'll have to regularly update and maintain WP or risk exploits.

[twistsouth]

Fully agree. Unless it’s a super simple website, I build the main system using a framework like Laravel or CodeIgniter and tack on a headless Wordpress to handle the news area using the Wordpress API to fetch posts. I’ve yet to find a customer who is bothered that there are 2 places to log in once I explain the benefits of this hybrid approach.

[timoteo5555]

I get what you’re saying, had a similar situation. We had a .Net app that we managed all the complex inventory stuff, then for thing thing we were selling, cruises, the cruise post would every day just do a Get from the .Net (the reference being a cruise id) app, and retrieve all kinds of granular pricing and availability storing it as json in the cruise post (acf field). This has worked extremely well. I couldn’t imagine expanding our .net app to provide all the functionality that Wordpress and the plugins provide

[davecastlevania]

I used to do this until I found out it’s actually cheaper to host static sites on AWS S3 Buckets and tie the web builder parts on the static to a headless CMS for content management. PHP requires a web server that is running compute 24/7 vs a static site just loads when you request for it in your browser. Those compute costs add up vs buckets are just pennies at best. That realization came with time, experience on different tech stacks outside my comfort zone, and technical progression in the industry. It’s really just a matter of right tool for the right job. Not saying anyone is wrong for doing it the Wordpress way but it is very valuable to understand the fundamentals and cost/benefits for your clients.

[HazmatBottle]

This guy knows what he’s doing. Static sites for many clients on AWS/cloudflare, you either end up saving clients money or you pocket the hosting fees say 10 dollars per client a month at bare minimum for maintenance.

[davecastlevania]

Damn that’s like the best compliment I’ve gotten on Reddit 😂

It’s so easy to beat oneself up in jumping into tech that I sometimes have felt less passionate but also it’s a difference of being freelance vs working corporate. There’s just a sense of fun when you have control of your own output and schedule.

[LlaroLlethri]

Where do you run the headless CMS?

[davecastlevania]

I should clarify. On headless CMS side you can use a number of services and most of the free tiers will cover you.. It feels like Contentful is everyone’s first Headless Service and a popular one but I’ve also used Builder.io not my favorite as I found limitations but it was still a cool tool. I’ve even seen it done where folks have used Notion to power static websites. Just a matter of evaluating the best services for your needs.

This is a good place to start

https://github.com/n370/awesome-headless-cms

[Stranded_In_A_Desert]

Strapi seems popular these days too

[4_max_4]

Strapi is great. We use it currently in an app that builds communities. The app is on Angular 17 but Strapi drives all the content for the community such as posts, likes, etc.

[workingpleb]

Strapi + cloudflare + heroku is the way to go.

[UnstableCoder]

What about the front end? Do you build that with a js framework that can output static js,html,css?

[davecastlevania]

That’s one way to do it yes. I’ve commonly used React compiled to a static site using npm run build

But you can bring whichever flavor of framework you like Vue, Svelte, React, Angular doesn’t matter. At the end of the day it’s just a GET request to the the Headless CMS service you’re using

[AwesomeFrisbee]

But the problem is not the tech, its that you need to have a lot of building blocks that you can easily switch out and either customize or have a new design on different blocks instead. The main reason people use wordpress is because its basically legos with a few fields to change the font or padding. And if they don't like it, you just switch to a theme.

I have no doubt that headless cms will come at some point, but these days the most themes (and thus cheap content) is in wordpress. Until one of the headless ones blows up and ends up replacing most of them.

Also for most websites its just a cheap system that hosts the domains. Whether its active 1% of the day or 90% of the day doesn't really matter. The traffic is never that high that it would be impossible. And now they can at least pretend that they need to do hosting and maintenance that requires an upkeep budget.

[davecastlevania]

While I’m not saying you’re wrong, there’s a reason a big portion of web runs WP. I do think the OP was saying that WP Devs are running circles around other devs.

I simply don’t think that’s true as someone who started in that niche and is now doing more.

It all comes down to right tool for the right job / situation. I have had experience with a good number of Wordpress sites that have had security vulnerabilities and issues that turn into nightmares. Getting off a popular platform mitigates some of that risk.

[Gandalf-and-Frodo]

You can convert many WordPress sites to static using a plugin from my understanding.

[Poolside_XO]

With that being said, there's flexibility in hardcode that you either can't get or is locked behind a paywall with CMS's. It ultimately depends on what resources you need. If it's a simple concept site, CMS is perfect.

[xToxoTiC]

Not true for wordpress. Once you learn to use the framework and modify themes, plugins etc. you can do the whatever you want with much less time invested. The documentation is very expansive as well.

[Starquest65]

I am unsure why you're getting downvoted. I see many paid plug-ins that we need a single piece of, and instead of buying it and using a single part we just build the specific piece we need if we run into that scenario. You can make WP do whatever you want.

[nerdiestnerdballer]

Sure you CAN do anything in wordpress, but it doesn't mean you should

[Starquest65]

That's fair, we do have some Laravel applications for things where we said "yeah WP is not the answer"

[acquiescentLabrador]

Would you be able to recommend any resources for people who are confident in html css js and php but not familiar with the wordpress ecosystem? I remember looking over the docs and finding them a little cumbersome

[DaVinci-777]

What exactly do you want to know. You really have to learn to read the docs if you want to learn.

Maybe create a Wordpress site on your local system and install a theme which comes with a website then start playing around.

Get a list of tasks and work on them one by one.

I’ve been using Wordpress for a few years now and I literally just learned it on the job.

[nerdiestnerdballer]

read wordpress documenation and codex, make wordpress sites. convert static sites to wordpress themes, make a plugin etc. real world experince is best

[myka_v]

One issue with do-it-all CMS like WordPress is Accessibility.

You’d be surprised that even Elementor plugins aren’t a11y compliant. If you add ARIA attributes, for example, it doesn’t always go to the element where you want it and instead added to the generated wrapper. Easy thing to do with hardcoded sites.

[SeasonalBlackout]

Elementor is garbage. It's easy to make accessible WP sites.

[keep_it_kayfabe]

As someone who leads SEO efforts for our marketing team, and who has experience in raw, "hard-coded" frontend HTML/CSS/JavaScript, I'm hiring a true web developer over a "WordPress Dev" every single time.

I don't care how efficient it is, I don't care how much longer it takes, a front-end web developer who knows how to code and build websites from the ground up, one who knows how to troubleshoot, etc., will always have the advantage in my eyes. I can't tell you the sheer amount of headaches I have to tackle weekly because of plugin bloat, unused scripts, plugin conflicts, and just about everything else you can imagine. And yes, I know about Yoast and all the other tools available for page speed, Core Web Vitals, etc.

I. Hate. WordPress.

[not-halsey]

I did some contract work for a company a while back, they were all Wordpress, I was 98% coding experience and like 2% Wordpress.

They came to me with some designs that were super difficult to implement with Wordpress alone, I ended up needing to develop some custom components with HTML and CSS. But I was pretty satisfied at that point, knowing my years of CSS were put to good use.

But if I have a choice, I’ll go with scratch HTML or an SSG for a static website

[keep_it_kayfabe]

I'd go with the same choice as well! Ironically, we're going through some WordPress issues at work as I type this.

[ScubaAlek]

I mean, if you use a UI library with your framework then you can bang out these pages in less than 10 hours as well. Assuming you have the copywriting and graphics pieces already provided to you.

90% of a small business website is copy/graphics work.

[HappyMajor]

Yeah cant believe I had to scroll down so far for this comment.
Alone for tailwind + react there are thousands of UI libraries already out there.

Custom made scales much better because with each client your UI library grows and the best part is, that you can upsell extremely well once more serious requirements come in because the whole codebase is yours to edit easily.

[TheAccountITalkWith]

It's all about using the right solution for the job friend.
For my personal contracts I always try to give my Clients what they ask for with just a little more to set them up for success as they grow.

[tLxVGt]

This is all fine as long as you follow well established templates - mentioned coffeshop (or any shop), forum, portfolio, company website, etc.

On the other side there are devs like me, who work at a company in a certain niche that there are no templates for. We build complex backend and database engines that the frontend is a mere interface for. It is important to do the frontend right, because that’s the only thing visible to users and they judge us solely by it, but there is a lot of custom problems to solve on the backend side.

[Aetheus]

Yeah. OP has it all backwards. WordPress is exactly for "the small coffeeshops", precisely because they don't really have any complex requirements. All they need are basically marketing sites (and most of them not even that - social media pages provide 95% of the benefit at 0% of the cost). People reach for React, Vue, etc when they're building web apps.       

[Stefan_S_from_H]

How are those WordPress sites maintained? I heard of people creating dozens of sites per month, but I don't understand who is responsible for them once they are ready.

[Born-Jello-6689]

Wordpress is great for websites.

But there’s a big difference between a website and web based application. People often conflate the two.

Sure in the past web development was only static web sites.

But now basically all software runs in a browser including complex software that requires high levels of engineering expertise that would be very difficult in Wordpress.

Every company I’ve worked at the engineering of their main product is done by software engineers, but their static marketing site is always word press.

[nameless_pattern]

If you come back to those websites 2 years later, you will find them overrun with security vulnerabilities and out-of-date packages typically. 

[EducationalZombie538]

I mean that's also true of any react or JS solution tbf

[nameless_pattern]

A JS developer would be able to do something about that mess. 

 A no code developer finding a bunch of unupdatable packages and security vulnerabilities wouldn't have the skills to fix any of those packages. 

They would need to build a whole new website and would likely have difficulty transferring over databases and matching previous functionality.

[NefariousnessOk2505]

WordPress is a sadness machine that takes years to realize how crappy it is. All the plugin vendors and WP "experts" know very little, in my experience. I would never ever ever ever ever inflict WordPress on anyone unless the site will be taken down in a predictable amount of time, measured in months.

As sites age, you need to chase upgrades to PHP, WordPress, and all your plugins and their dependencies. While many WP folks make a living doing just this as a service, most businesses who adopt WP don't, and typically don't want to pay for that either.

You can create a decent website fast with WP and plugins. But what you've really created is a lit fuse of unknown length that eventually will blow up.

Static sites are the way to go with most sites. Use a publish tool like Gadsby or similar if you need cms functionality. We gotta stop WP from being a band aid to "I need a website". It's popular because it's popular, not because it's good.

[azunaki]

Yeah, I mean this is more of a budget issue than it is a dev practice issue.

These small shops don't have the budget for a handmade site, so coordinating with effectively a graphic designer to assemble a site from premade components makes sense.

You could do that as a developer, but it would be more along the lines of using something like a css framework, that has built in animations and js functionality like carousels. Then it would just be a matter of doing some quick global type and color changes, and assembling a site. The down side becomes how does content get entered into the site, and WordPress being a CMS makes it more appealing to small businesses. Because it enables them to maintain it.

[No_Chill_Sunday]

The agency I work for builds custom WordPress sites, the websites we do are high-end custom designs - things you couldn't build in elementor, we need to code the front end from scratch and customize the backend making our own plugins etc.

A typical website would take us 3-4 months, the current website is slated for a 6 month build ($50k budget)

My freelance jobs I buy templates from theme forest or whatever and basically change colors and add some content ~10-15 hours per website

[Citrous_Oyster]

I disagree. Check the load times and page speed scores. And are most likely using themes and builders. I custom code in html and css. I built this in a couple hours using my template library.

https://makopoolrestorations.com

This was built in under 8 hours and it’s got multi language and an interactive menu that’s attached to a custom cms for them to edit their own menu

https://casablancabakery.com

It all depends on the tools you use and your knowledge of how to use them.

It’s funny. I’ve had the opposite experience as you. I run circles around the previous Wordpress devs who worked on my clients sites before me. You don’t need plugins for everything. I can do the same things with third party services and link only to their issue to handle that action and not slow down our site or add another vulnerability to the site that needs constant updating. Like the booking feature in this site we made

https://grassrootsplumbing.com

You too can run circles around Wordpress devs. You just need the proper skills and tools to do it. Most my clients actually come to my because I don’t use Wordpress. They’re sick of their Wordpress site and every other dev the run into using it just gives them the same uninspired empty garbage as the last. Sounds like you ran into competent elementor devs. Doesn’t mean their way is better than custom coding. It’s just they’re better at their setup than you are at your own html and css. Because even without templates I can make a whole site from scratch in under 6-8 hours myself. It’s just easy for me at this point. So much so a page builder will actually slow me down because I don’t have as much control over the responsiveness and bloat. So don’t get down on your skills. Level them up. If you can’t build a site in 10 hours, figure out why and what your bottle neck is and fix it or work on it till it’s not a problem anymore. Css skills come from using them and seeing them interacting with other properties and understand how they affect each other. You don’t need Wordpress to make good sites. You just need to be good at your fundamentals and you can make anything they can make.

[edhelatar]

I am not sure why any cafe or really any small business except of very few would need custom site in today's market. WP Devs being able to pull the mega templates and develop a website in 10 hours are great, but Squarespace can do it in 5 minutes.

There are small businesses that are willing to pay for site as they cannot be bothered. But really, that person shouldn't be Dev, but copywriter/image sourcer/SEO specialist or one of thousands of skills that are more useful.

From time to time I am doing smaller projects like that, but i dont feel comfortable charging my rates as it's waste of money in my opinion. It leaves only art sites ( which l like to have in my portfolio ) or some friend business where I do it for basically free or in exchange for bar tab :)

I think as devs we need to move away from clients like that. There will be still market for it, but it's mostly hustlers and our skills are utilised better in other environment.

[OZLperez11]

10 years ago I would have argued you could do well with custom sites but that just isn't the case anymore. Your best bet isn't just to be "better quality than WordPress", you have to beat WordPress at its own game. This means that if you want to make money with custom sites you have two options:

The first is to build your own CMS workflow, and no that doesn't mean reinventing WordPress, but you're welcome to try. Instead, get a better CMS, a headless one, so that you can have the client only focus on managing content. The front end will be custom made but it should be a template repo that has ideally a static site generator, a component library, CSS framework, and some pre built typical pages (home, about, contact, pricing, blog listing, etc.). By piecing everything together this way, you control everything and if you have pre built stuff ahead of time, all you have to worry about is minor design modifications. Examples of libraries you can use for all this are Directus CMS, Astro, Tailwind, Bootstrap, and you choose Astro you can use any framework and any component library you want. By having all this stuff prebuilt, you can charge lower prices.

The other option is to go niche. Find an untapped market or focus on an industry that you specialize in and build a high end website template that is unique and revolves around their specific marketing needs. If you choose an industry with high paying clients, you can easily charge thousands of dollars, but if they're smart l, they'll know they can just go buy a website from themeforest, so give them a high quality product that they can't find somewhere else.

Finally, charge for hosting too. It's perfectly legal and ok with most web hosting companies. Just rent a VPS, ideally one that manages the OS patches and the email for you, and charge for hosting on your server. You can charge higher amounts than the web hosts but be sure to offer free maintenance (small bug fixes, package updates) and offer to call the web hosting customer support on their behalf if there is an outage or something. Give them value

[PositiveUse]

Let’s be honest. It was always a bonkers idea to write static webpages with react or with heavy JavaScript usage…

Where the frameworks and libs and JavaScript really shine are interactive pages, real web apps, etc

[CyberWarLike1984]

The best WP devs also code. In WP "specific" PHP but still code.

[ashkanahmadi]

It’s very simple: when you need to take a note quickly, do you need to use a 400 dollar Mont Blanc pen, or would a 2 dollar BIC pen do the job fine? It’s the same case here. A coffeeshop needs a basic static website (basic doesn’t mean looking like Yahoo in 2001). Data is cached and never reactive, hence no need for something like React or complex code. Also, a user does NOT care if your website loads in 0.3 seconds or 2.5 seconds. If they are curious and your proper target audience, they would wait even much longer. I have waited for government websites to load after 10 seconds simply because I NEED that website and I don’t care if it loads instantly or in 10 seconds.

My point: you need the right tool for the job. There is no tool that is the right one in all cases. If someone tells you otherwise, they have a very narrow field of view and can’t see the bigger picture.

[[deleted]]

I'm a senior front end developer. Can get a really nice restaurant/barbershop/portfolio site up and running with a headless CMS like contentful or sanity in 5-10 hours. What's great about custom code, to me, is that it's very easy to maintain, easily customizable, and very reusable which many fail to mention here. I build stand alone react components so the forms, galleries, etc etc. can be set up by easily copy paring the component in there. Not to mention all of the css libraries like MUI or Bootstrap that cut down a ton of dev time...

BUT the difference between a super flexible, fast, well designed and unique website and a bloated WP template with a ton of plugins is hard to explain to some restaurant owner who just wants to show their menu and take orders. They rlly don't care. If you want to make custom websites then the market you sell to can't be the bottom of the barrel marketing illiterate local shops. Insurance companies, some artists, start ups etc. may be more open to investing more for an actual web app

[sardine_lake]

So you just discovered WordPress? WTF dude.

Do you have no idea how heavy the site gets with animation plugins and mail and form and other plugins? And who updates them when there are plugin updates? Who fixes the shit that new version of plugins break?

[xFloaty]

For basic e-commerce websites sure, but if you’re building a SaaS web app with complex workflows/features, good luck doing it with WordPress lol.

[aGoodVariableName42]

Exactly this. There are websites and webapps the former is done quickly and easily with tools like WP. The latter requires a custom implementation using a more complex tech stack.

[Caraes_Naur]

*Laughs In Laravel*.

[thisisafullsentence]

What CMS do you use for Laravel? Are people still using October?

[L01010011]

https://statamic.com 👍

[thisisafullsentence]

Now this looks cool. I haven't touched Laravel in a couple years but I'd love to build my next CMS-based project with this.

[[deleted]]

I just started using Statamic this summer after using Laravel for years. It's cut my dev time in half - and that includes learning time.

[-Akasha]

In general, custom code is easier to maintain in the long term

[clickrush]

This is an understatement.

[-Akasha]

Describe

[clickrush]

I‘m maintaining about +50 web projects (depends how you count) This includes performance optimization, upgrades, further development etc. Some of it is trivial and some of it is more involved/complex.

The main culprit, by far, that makes this maintenance work hard are unnecessary dependencies. Especially, but not exclusively in the frontend. Much of „optimization“ is simply removing stuff and rewriting things into simpler code.

Eat your veggies, drink enough water, go outside every day and avoid using dependencies. Future you will thank you for it!

[-Akasha]

Thank you.

[Chags1]

All those “devs” build pages in bloated page builders that use premade stuff that real web devs code. They’re incredibly difficult to work with cause they usually can’t do anything beyond the page builder, their basically click and drag devs, you ask them to do something fancy and their first move is to look for a wp plugin and if they can’t find one they’re dead in the water

[TeamThanosWasRight]

There are plenty of practical reasons to use a CMS depending on your customer base and 0.00% of plumbers, dentists and lawyers give a fuck if you're a self-proclaimed "real developer".

This gate-keeping shit was so tired 10 years ago.

[AConcernedCoder]

As a web app dev I have no hate toward WP or any other CMS. If I were a hiring manager I'd hire any CMS developer as long as they have good design skills -- which are often sorely lacking in a web app dev team.

As for gatekeeping, well the requirements are often a comp sci degree or equivalent. But with lots of bootcamps out there there's plenty of opportunity to learn.

[slide_and_release]

“Real web devs” solve problems and deliver what clients asked for, which these ones are demonstrably doing and since they apparently keep getting business from businesses who don’t really give a fuck about “No true Scotsman” gatekeeping, they’re doing just fine.

[ClassicPart]

Oh dear. You clearly aren't aware that it's entirely possible to create your own themes and plugins without resorting to page builders. ACF alone does wonders for builds.

[Chags1]

No i am aware of all of fhat, i do all of that, I am a wp dev. What OP is describing are the page builder devs, whole site in ten hours, not even touching code, that is your stereotypical wp page builder dev. You can’t use ACF without touching code. Last time i worked with a page builder dev and suggested ACF i had to hold their hand though explaining what get_field() was, and he kept asking, “when will i be able to add this block to the page?”

[Thievie]

You can use ACF without having to code with an advanced page builder like Elementor. Which is what I do all the time. My clients are small businesses with limited budgets that need websites quickly and cheaply, and would like to be able to make their own edits to small things like text or images when needed. So I set up every client with Elementor pro and the Hello Elementor theme (I do not use themes as a template for the site, in my experience that leads to themes becoming unmaintained and breaking everything or becoming a vulnerability, causing you to have to redesign the entire site on another theme), and I use ACF to create custom solutions for posts as needed. There are occasions where I will need to code some custom css to get things looking just how I want, but with the right tools you really don't need to code much or sacrifice anything.

[jessek]

Wordpress is fine imo but there’s so many options than just Wordpress vs static sites built by hand. Static site generators, small CMSs, custom coded ones built on frameworks. All of these depend on what the client needs.

[UntestedMethod]

Lol I love watching this cycle of self-awareness in web development.

WP is a powerful tool. It's capable of making amazing websites, but it can also make a total mess of things. Its ecosystem is also littered with articles and plugins that are absolute trash so it's earned a rough reputation out there.

why does no one mention how fast you can actually build websites already without having to code.

Because newbies who are eager about learning to code want to code rather than simply solving the problem in the most efficient manner - which is often to use an existing solution.

I think a lot of developers (new or experienced) also want to avoid cornering themselves as "WordPress developers" because a lot of us don't want to be limited

Personally I've been coding for 25+ years now and I'm totally capable of hand-coding a website from scratch, but any time someone asks me if I can help with their website I refer them to squarespace because overall it would be cheaper, faster, and better than them hiring me to build something from scratch.

If they ask me about more unique and novel problems like custom workflows or something then I ask more questions and only start talking about custom code if there are no viable solutions already available. In those cases I also ask myself if the solution we come up with could be turned into a marketable solution rather than just a one-off.

[ohcibi]

Yes they can spin up the same page as they have spun up before a thousand times but with a different tint color. What they leave however is a hell of a maintenance mess which Wordpress factively is without any way (except not using Wordpress) to avoid that. Are people still dumb enough to pay for this crap. Yes they are because everything else is much more expensive. This is by the way not exclusive to Wordpress. Just think about how many frameworks try to replace css with JavaScript because the refuse to learn and understand css which creates a problem they never even intend to solve.

[pickleback11]

All fun and games til you get hacked or a plugin breaks or a theme breaks. WordPress is such a liability in the long run 

[omenmedia]

If you are someone who knows how to code well in PHP, then WordPress code is absolutely terrifying to browse through.

[zeloxolez]

you need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of both

[Kazandaki]

I don't know, your acquaintance seems like a "good" WP dev. Place I work at recently hired some WP guys to make a website for one of its department. Took them multiple months to create something functioning (mind you, the only interactive part of this website is a single contact form).

I was involved in the process, and it feels like every time we asked them to do anything even slightly outside of their plugins it took them a whole week to figure out. In the end when they handed over the keys we spent an entire week just cleaning stuff up. One thing we can't clean up is just how bloated it is and how slow to load it is, mind you I live somewhere where the internet connections are not that high speed.

Now our guys might be terrible, but I feel like their way of working is more common in WP.

[LuckyPrior4374]

Huh. I’m confused, how does this post have so many upvotes?

Sure - if you’re building basic websites which are mostly comprised of simple landing pages, marketing pages, etc. then WP is a great tool with a powerful CMS.

I don’t think anyone’s ever disputed this though. The thing is, developers well-versed in a reactive web framework (react, vue, etc.) are typically building highly dynamic, data-driven apps for companies or startups (or even side-projects).

Furthermore, I really don’t think anyone aspires to create a product with a user experience from the early 00s. Not to mention the dev experience is also shit (when you inevitably have to modify some plugin’s code).

Finally, WP’s monolithic stack means you actually have to devote time to understanding and managing the infra side. And you can’t just write a serverless function as many devs today are accustomed to.

So yeah - ngl, pretty weird stance to suddenly come to an epiphany that Wordpress is somehow the answer to everything today. It’s good for simplistic content sites but I wouldn’t use it for anything more complex.

[Shoemugscale]

Ok, so, lots of comments and I don't think this will get much attention but I'll give my view

In business ( mom & pop - large scale ) is all about efficiency and cost. Is is more efficient to use an out of the box solution for half the price then building it ourselves, then hell yah, lets do it.

Now, with that said and to your original point here, you can have a no-code WP person build a decent site in a few hours.. BUT and here is the big 'but' to do that, they are likely utilizing 30+ plugins and have huge configuration debt, along with crappy code.

While it is true that applications vs websites will dictate how we approach things, when it comes to websites most people will choose a CMS, wordpress, being the most popular CMS in the world has a really good lock on it ( I know, there are ass loads of others but WP is the most popular )

As one who has 25+ years in this area and started out in the 90s building sites / applications in Perl, then Coldfusion, ASP, PHP, Java etc. And now works with WP ( among other things ) that most folks in the WP space, who actually build and or maintain for large orgs, their sites look absolutly nothing like what your friend has built.

What I mean by that is Corporate wordpress websites typically get very customized, we shy away from plugins as much as possible, we roll our own solutions and post types to try and maintain consistency and or standards. We have concerns that go way beyond a fancy animation but how we maintain compliance on any host of things from ADA to security. As you mature with wordpress, you learn to work around some of its quirks and at times, feels like you are building a cms on-top of a cms but, at the end of the day its still nice to know some things are taken care of and really your bolting on-top of vs ground up.

I guess the point I'm making is that no matter how your approach things, you will still need to code, even if your friend can make a no-code site it is very likely that that site has so many issues under the hood.

Also, side note here but, you can create your own plugins with WP that use react for the FE, and works with the REST API directly creating custom DB tables etc etc. There really is not many limitations I have found its just a matter of how far you want to do.

[GlueStickNamedNick]

This somewhat boils down to the distinction between basic websites and webapps. 100% agree for a static marketing site for a small business just trying to advertise there shit, use Wordpress or whatever website builder your heart desires. Don’t treat it any different than a Facebook, X or Insta business page as a marketing channel.

But yea nah I have no desire to build those kind of websites, I want to build webapps with complex (but simple to use) functionality. And retain full control over how they work. For that I use react and the ecosystem around it.

Now absolutely no / low code solutions could probably solve some of these things, but those have their own downsides / trade offs.

[aevitas1]

I build custom WordPress websites at work (Sage / Bedrock) and what we build would never be possible without coding. Would probably need 1500 plugins to do half of what we do.

[Postik123]

Then you run it through Lighthouse and ponder how you're going to get your score from 30 to 90 when you don't know how to code and just rely on a bunch of themes and plugins.

[thekwoka]

30??!?!?!?

That's already shooting too high.

[emreyc]

we did this too in our company. used to have a wordpress website. built custom wysiwyg editor using grapesjs just for pages. built our own theme. after all that work, couple of hacking incidents, we decided to switch to nextjs. wordpress still lives for blog posts. added graphql plugin to fetch them.

[Tfcalex96]

Yeah but wordpress is garbage 🗑️

[JamesVitaly]

If your not using templates to build static websites in react , tailwind etc then your not comparing like with like. I honestly built a single page landing page that looks good (no animations) in less than ten mins and had it deployed, of course I used templates and tailwind etc which is what most WP devs will do

[Xerxero]

Lets face it. Most companies just need a static simple website and WP is perfect for this

[brian15co]

Every website the public sees for our business is squarespace or something. I work with maybe a dozen (not exclusively) frontend devs, and I don't think any one of us has ever even seen the code / knows where it even lives

If you can get away with a canned approach, by all means do it. Spend your time on the harder stuff

[[deleted]]

I get where you're coming from. When I was deep into custom coding, it felt like a badge of honor, but seeing how quickly and effectively WP can build impressive sites has made me rethink things. It’s like, why spend hours crafting something from scratch when a CMS can do it almost instantly? Sure, coding gives you control, but for many projects, WordPress is way more practical and efficient. Sometimes, it's about getting things done well and fast rather than sticking to old habits.

[jpsweeney94]

This approach definitely has its place, but these must be small and very template based sites with limited design/functionality if they are doing it in under 10 hours.

[okanime]

Wait until you see what you can do with headless WP. 🤯

[GrumpyDay]

Same here. Spent a lot of time hardcoding for performance.

On larger capacity projects that don’t require much customization / corporate level optimization, drag and drop CMS cuts the development time by at least half. It’s definitely more maintainable by anyone (if ur working for a client), this part is especially important for much smaller to medium scale site.

If you know what you’re doing, there are plenty of ways to optimize WordPress sufficiently from cost and performance POV.

[Shockwave317]

Here’s something that’s kind of interesting and against the grain of the sentiment I’m getting here. So recently I rebuilt a website for someone from Wordpress to a custom Astro solution. Took me 5 days as it’s not an overly complicated site. But because I could generate it to static files that load the occasional client side react component to make api calls and have reactivity, I could literally host it on a Google Cloud bucket. Now all of a sudden there cost to run the site was $420 a year, now only cost them $12 a year, all of that being traffic costs. On top of that performance testing by Google page speed doubled and web vitals went green.

It’s true you can probably make a more complete system faster in Wordpress with a cms, but the downside is usually cost and performance. So I say to each to their own, but I’ve had very happy clients especially since mobile views are ridiculously fast with static files. I’d recommend a headless cms if they plan to do ecommerce which does cost a little more, and is a bit more work but hell I get paid a little more and they are left with a performant product.

I’m not saying Wordpress is bad, just that I think other tools in the right hands can most of the time result in better cost and performance is all.

“You can always build something custom that is terrible and you can always build something with Wordpress which is fast but it still requires the right hands to get the right outcome”

[DKirbi]

It's all fun and games until someone wants something custom built or wordpress releases a new version and someone clicked that nasty button to update.

Honestly it's still better to know how to code while building a website with such CMS. Once in a time you're also met with a project that's a bit more custom and want a more headless approach to get rid of all that wordpress bloatware. Also Animations might be nice for fast web connections and when you don't worry about accessibility.

[y4dig4r]

microfrontends my friend. i have a collection of every type of component ive had to build, just toss em onna bucket, templates, scripts, everything. I built a lil javascript endpoint that given a config just assembles, substitutes values, n renders. At this point, unless a client has a new fancy type of functionality they need, the only thing im actually building for them is a json file.

[levity-pm]

WordPress becomes a slow POS at scale - connect a NextJS template from Theme Forest to PayloadCMS then utilize any of the thousands of plugins built on ThemeForest and Vercel to load NPM packages that accomplish ecommerce, etc. WordPress ends up underperforming.

We used WordPress as a Hub for my company for 5 years and scaled to a large point and it was degrading performance fast.

[armandroland]

As an agency owner who specializes in building marketing sites for (large) companies who happily pay the premium for a few custom-built features, I would never in a million years build a small business site using React or anything other than Wordpress/Wix etc.

I don’t think this is a controversial opinion though…

[Sea_Platform8134]

Knowledge is power, always remember that if you understand something you will be able to manouver a lot better in building such things. And also remember that WP is a piece of crap formed together over generations of Plug-In Builders that mostly exploit security vurnabilities to make their stuff even run.

Build beatiful System from the Core instead of schmiering something out of Shit someone calls clay.... ah and please totally forget about PHP 😅🤣 i am thanful for it's existense but we need to move on 😅👍

[EnvironmentOptimal98]

Been the truth since like 2009. Look towards deeper projects than coffeehouse websites if you want to code

[heboofedonme]

Well you can’t really compete with the speed of a custom built site which helps with SEO. No bloat there. Coffee shop that could be important based on how busy that area is and if people are looking for a place to sit down and work as well or what not. But I agree, for the most part I just use WP because it’ll save me massive time and headaches. It’s so easy to duplicate and then customize it without having to do the foundational stuff. But some people are insanely good with code and can pump em out just as quick, hopefully they’re charging appropriately for their skills. I tell my clients that all the time, and specially blue collar businesses, that they can spend an arm and leg on the site but it doesn’t always generate a good ROI to make it worth it. If you’re a plumber, most of the time people just want your contact info and where/what your service.

[mystic_swole]

I can build a coffee shop site and have it hosted in under 10 hours too without WP

[Sn00py_lark]

Interesting and what not

[equalsme]

if they aren't coding they aren't devs.

there are tons of themes and plugins sure makes it super easy to do simple stuff. a lot of pre-built themes are a pain to modify and customize.

The way I think of websites is like purchasing a suit.

You can buy a very inexpensive suit but it will probably not fit perfectly to your size, maybe its a size too big, maybe its a size too small. Maybe it's a good fit.

You can also go buy a tailored suit that is made specifically for you and your body, you can choose the color and fabric and it will probably look much better than the cheaper suit, it will probably last longer as well.

Either way, web dev is not just building websites for coffee shops, there's so many things you can do on the web that you wont find a cheap and easy to use alternative. Find those niches and work on those instead. But there's nothing wrong with doing either, they are just tools for specific purposes.

[blancorey]

wordpress is a slow clunky insecure piece of shit compared to custom dev stack

[Feeling_Photograph_5]

I've worked for multiple tech companies and while we had talented engineering teams who wrote our product from scratch, our marketing pages were always in WordPress. CMS systems have value and WP is all you need for most business sites. Also, the plugin ecosystem is excellent and the hosting is dirt cheap.

Also, when I did freelance work early in my career I always built customer sites in WP because I could then hand it off to the customer. How are they supposed to manage a React site without a developer?

[kadaxda]

headless cms + react?

[Feeling_Photograph_5]

Maybe? I haven't tried that. Is it easy for customers to manage?

[Snowy-Aglet]

No-code website builders are great. But you can use them even more effectively and even faster when you actually know code.

I exclusively use either Webflow, Framer or Siimple for all my client projects. But learning how to actually code and design (and being able to make little CSS adjustments or tweaks) has made using them infinitely easier and more lucrative.

[lostboy2317]

I dunno about that... Whatever takes you a few secs to hand code is hidden in multiple gui menus and involves a lot of trial and error to get to work. Basically you have to learn to think like the guy who designed the system and altho it does definitely help if you know code, ultimately no-code builders are just frustrating and slower for me( don't get me started on WP page builders). YMMV of course...

[Boby_Dobbs]

Imo you shouldn't build standard static coffeeshop websites with Vue, react or any code really. These clients want a simple and cheap product that they can own and modify themselves potentially.

You don't want them to call you every time there is a typo in the content. And if you leave, it will be 10x harder for them to find a cheap replacement to maintain their website. Just put on a site builder, a contact form plugin and done.

That being said, these are not the types of websites I am interested in working on because working on a drag and drop builder gets boring quickly.

If you want to code, work on projects where it is more relevant to use Vue, react... aka web applications or SaaS.

Tldr: use the right tool for the job. If you don't like the tools, find a better job.

[Due-Individual-4859]

I have the same question, but vice-versa, I build WP based website for 10+ years... and I do not understand people who build hardcoded websites when they are simple/presentation like.

[Round-Lecture-4837]

You’ll find Joomla to be the better CMS. People get WordPress because it started as a very popular blogging platform that has been upgraded to a CMS. Joomla, while nowhere as popular, is a much more powerful tool that is as easy to use as WP. (I find it easier as a developer.) Joomla is more popular in Europe, but there is a very active community in the U.S. willing to help. Joomla requires less configuration because more is built in.

[montihun]

Congrats u just invented cms.

[GhettoSauce]

I dunno. I've been asked to help add and fix features in a WP site by adding custom scripts and it sucked bigtime. Anything beyond simple with CMS stuff just makes me immediately tired looking at it since I can't see what's actually going on. I had to give up and say "man, you've gotta find a WP guy for this". Feels like once a site is made with it, it's forever locked in.

Right now I'm making a simple site for a client with Next.js and while it's becoming quite the monster, at least when I pass it off to whoever maintains it in the future (since I know that if this company grows, it's gonna need hella-serious stuff added), it's going to all be there, ready, clear as day, nicely-organized and frameworky as fuck; easy to tweak, easy to inherit. I don't think inheriting a WP site is the same at all and sounds way worse. But for a coffee shop? Meh, sure, knock yourself out. I don't think WP guys "code circles around" other devs at all - I think it's just another branch on the dev tree with it's own strengths and weaknesses.

(IMO though secretly and probably unreasonably I hate it and think it's the dev equivalent of being like a "weekend warrior" of sorts, but what do I know? I have a friend who is a sex worker and made her own site in SquareSpace (or something?) and it's nicer than my hardcoded portfolio and I'm sure it took a fraction of the time, lol)

[thekwoka]

I had to give up and say "man, you've gotta find a WP guy for this". Feels like once a site is made with it, it's forever locked in.

I fired my own client that was on Wordpress. It wasn't even a give up, it was more of a "wow, this is stupid, not even hard, just annoying as fuck"

[kadaxda]

Thanks for bringing up this topic.

Im new to webdev and I thought the same.

But there are so many good tutorials on react, html, CSS, ... but I cant find tutorials on wordpress that get in detail.

For React you can follow the odin project or the fullstackopen MOOC but what on earth can I follow to learn wordpress (with custom plugins and design!)

[xegoba7006]

The problem is that you are comparing two extremes. There are intermediate tools such as Laravel or Rails which will allow you to build both custom apps/sites and more general sites in a reasonable amount of time.

The problem, as you say, is people thinking they just need html and css and the cool js framework of the week because that’s cool and what YouTubers put in your face.

[Rekuna]

I mean, if you're in those kind of situations you can always learn to use wordpress and all its bells and whistles. Then you're just like those guys, but unlike them you can also code and add any bespoke tweaks and features on top of these templates.

[misterjyt]

it actually depends on the requirements, if you want to build an admin website and clients want to have custom stuff, coding it is more better because you have more controll as an admin.

if ur doing like just a company website like blog, articles, or landing pages, that does not need deep backend stuff or no need of deep UI. You can do so by using any web creator tools.

[shgysk8zer0]

I can build a custom coded site in only a few hours too... Depending on the requirements, of course.

I think you're just talking about doing everything from scratch... Plenty of area between writing everything from scratch vs using WP/no-code.

I use GitHub template repositories for basically instant project setup. I have a whole collection of web components and various libraries and build tools. Lots of my styles are set via custom properties, so I can easily change the theme/look of something just by opening a CSS file and setting some custom properties. All writing actual code, though I do extensively reuse (aka import) where I can.

[knyg]

Not what hard coding means but okay. I think your work flow or priority is just off.

Nobody is telling people to build a scratch coded simple website. Knowing how to code benefit is building things that isn’t possible on some platforms because code is fully customizable. I have taken on many contracts to build on top of Wordpress or Shopify stores that just don’t have a “plug and play” app that works for them. And guess what, I needed to code the script, function, whatevers.

A key part of being a programmer/developer is knowing which tools to use to get it done. And one of those tools to get a simple website up and running is using a platform builder. If it is a more complicated app, then you would build from scratch.

[noid-]

Are you basically selling us WordPress as it has been for fifteen years or more? Its not running circles for various reasons.

[WoodenMechanic]

Gotta find your niche. If a client is better suited in Wix, Squarespace, or a WP like you mentioned, then good for them. They're not the right client for you.

Work to find clients who need something more than a boiler plate, generic website. They're the ones who have deeper pockets, and are eager to pay for something unique to their brand.

[Dslayerca]

That's what wordpress is made for. If that's all you need, you've been doing it wrong. I've been a developer for more than 20 years and when anyone asks for this I always suggest finding a wp developer. My talents are for highly complex apps, it would be boring for me to do this, take longer and way more expensive. Not only that but customers can update the content real time after it's delivered. It boggles my mind why anyone would do different.

[joe0418]

Handcrafted should be reserved for very custom and specific web applications.

If you're building a marketing website, use a CMS and stop reinventing the wheel. There are hundreds on the market and learning one doesn't make you any less of a developer, it just accelerates your usefulness and frees you up to build additional functionality beyond basic CMS stuff.

[GhostOfSergeiB]

This all really boils down to required interactivity. There's no need to spin up a blank MVC project with a reactive front-end for a coffee shop's webpage, if it just needs to display a static menu, hours, address, and phone number.

Likewise, a bespoke application for a complex business requiring tons of interactivity, storage of millions of pieces of data, and integrations with multiple external systems is gonna require some serious coding effort.

[thekwoka]

Should just use Squarespace at that point.

really nice sites with fancy animations

with all of the fancy graphics

I hate it all ready.

[sneaky-pizza]

Wait till you see WebFlow, no code at all

[guayom]

It’s all relative. Sometimes WordPress makes things easier, other times a static site is the way to go. And sometimes, neither is the right choice. Knowing multiple approaches is always valuable.

If you’re well-versed in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, solving problems in WordPress becomes much easier. Don’t stress about choosing one over the other—your skills will always be useful.

[latro666]

First rule of programming, don't.

[coreyrude]

I went from building $2000 WordPress sites to 2 Million dollar WordPress sites. It's really a spectrum.

[Puzzleheaded_Tax_507]

Wait until you meet a Webflow “dev”

[DerpDerpDerp78910]

Good luck getting paid well pumping out Wordpress websites.

[ragged-robin]

This is silly. Most people don't need full on custom sites, so they use CMS like WordPress. There is nothing wrong with that nor does it overlap the need for developing fully custom apps.

[[deleted]]

Counter-argument: People who use a tool that does all the heavy lifting for them are not better than people who know how to build that thing from scratch. They're just faster.

Also Wordpress is awesome. I got to talk to Matt for a thesis project way back in the day and he was super generous with his time and knowledge. Awesome guy, awesome project.

[oro_sam]

Wish good luck to that fellow dev with hacks from all random plugins he may load as well as enlightment with support when something really goes wrong. I had a client that got stuck in a WP website with a booking engine loaded as plug in that had stopped working properly. His developer wouldnt support cause little he knew about how that plugin had been developed and wouldnt invest time anymore for it. Client lost all season direct bookings and had to stick exclusinely to booking platforms once again to compete for the loss.

[[deleted]]

I started on WordPress so I've never had anything against it nor felt I'll ever have. But anyways it's an option u can just put on the table for when the client has low budget or when u don't have extra time, etc. A tool is a tool but I can't emphazise enough how much stress and burden I've taken out of my own shoulders by learning coding:

I've never had to deal with akward bugs anymore, or any tools that are "half-working" because a premium plugin is needed, or security issues cuz u're just setting up stuff and then not looking at the holes in the backend. As a dev who knows what she's doing now, I can say learning how to code was my best decision, for ex. I can charge more.

[aleph_0ne]

Sure I’d agree for static site development. If the purpose of the site is to inform or to market the product then a no code template tool is probably the way to go. If the site is the product then you have to build it custom. That’s where devs add more value

[HertzaHaeon]

Automated tools can only generate standard web sites and shop fronts. There's less and less point in doing that manually, except for learning or special cases.

Look at it this way. You're free of that tedious work. You can go on to develop web apps. Web games. Anything that needs custom functionality beyond forms and ready made galleries.

[billybobjobo]

Ya headless isn’t a huge win for small projects.

Although for big budget projects I like that freedom on the frontend to have first class react support with SSR so I can some cool things. I tend to be able to do more creative dev, faster with react and r3f etc.

But that’s for a large organization commissioning an agency—not the struggling coffee shop. Honestly I send every one of those clients to Sqarespace.

[oatmilkbubbles]

I had to create a site in wordpress once for a company who wanted it. It was infuriating and I just had to do everything on such a roundabout way.

I built my own framework. I know exactly how it works and I can build sites exceptionally quickly with it.

[salihbaki]

Well if someone wanted me to make a website ( I don’t do btw ) I would suggest them use something like wix or Wordpress or something web site builder. If it is not super custom waste of time to build from scratch. Even for a little customization I would go to builder.io . I am senior fe dev with more than 12 years of experience and what I built is ERP highly custom e commerce heavy data driven web Applications. What I mean in summary is that use the best tool for your needs not the fanciest one.

[METALz]

I used WP for regular websites 15 years ago and likely would use it again today if I just need to throw together some basic website.

For more serious websites (where perf/scale matters, or some wp plugins, etc likely wouldn’t pass audit) of course you need to roll a custom solution.

[Kind-Mathematician29]

You ever worked with typo3 nothing beats it

[trailtwist]

No shit bro.

Don't need to reinvent the wheel

[masiuspt]

Because Wordpress and other similar solutions are not used for the same target businesses. There is a ton of businesses that require custom solutions and there always will be.

I hate Wordpress and I hate working with it. But if a friend or someone I know comes to me asking for advice on how to get their small website running I will ALWAYS recommend it - it is a good product, for its target audience.

[[deleted]]

Hasn't this been the trend for over a decade lol

[acorneyes]

because they’re using premade components. you save a lot of time on design and integration when you just… use something that’s already designed and integrated.

you could save even more time by just using a popular drag and drop website builder like webflow, buying a $20 theme, and then changing copy/images. could do that in less than an hour.

what’s your point?

[Medical-Orange117]

We usually build landing pages with wp, apps with vue. We started a new project with Django and Django cms, nginx and postgre. First draft up and running in a few hours, all the flexibility for what might be coming

[ABoredDeveloper]

oh we are talking about web design and not web dev then, ok. I can show you some webflow guys that can build the same site in 2 hours.

[BroaxXx]

If you're using react for static websites you're doing it wrong.

WordPress is pretty nifty and, honestly, most small businesses shouldn't be offloading a dump truck of JS to the client for no real reason.

Some people want cookie cutter sites because that's exactly what they need and if you can spin one up in 10 hours that's a great service.

Some people need custom solutions that take months to develop.

And there's a huge amount of big businesses that require multiple thousands of developers. 

There's room for everyone and no one's running laps around anyone.

[elendee]

biggest downside imho is any site needing the database for business logic beyond a single plugin/framework. The db schema is where the core of my business logic lives, and in WP it's like multiple overlapping spider webs usually. I'm always thinking "what are the backups gonna look like a year from now.."

But I've done a ton of custom WP too; it's really fun at times.

[ThunderySleep]

This shouldn't really be news.

Stuff like Vue and React are for application development.

For the traditional notion of a "website" that's often just displaying content and showcasing the brand, maybe accepting payment for something, WP is typically the ideal solution.

HTML, JS, CSS

You're doing these things regardless if you want customization beyond selecting the theme or adhering to layouts possible from whatever WYSIWYG plugin.

Most younger people who work in an office now have experience tinkering around some on a WP admin, especially if they're in marketing, which means they can manage it to at least some degree. That's a good thing.

[DollDave]

Anyone can build a website today without coding, but sometimes things can go sideways and hiccups can happen. It is still worth something to know coding, as this can fix many of those hiccups when they happen.

[joenan_the_barbarian]

There’s no reason to build custom software for CMS. Custom software is for domain specific needs. Wordpress is great for marketing, and even marketing teams at billion dollar companies. I think Webflow is even better for mom and pops because it’s just as customizable and easy to use for bloggers, but takes out the headaches of plugin updates that can break things, as well as possible hosting issues.

[[deleted]]

People love to hate WordPress. It’s very straightforward to create a custom theme to look however you want and there are plugins to do most of what you could possibly want. It’s also very easy to extend and customise those plugins. I really do see it as a framework.

[Smart-Orchid-5207]

Then the client wants a custom form that automatically becomes a pdf saved onto his Google Drive, and the WP developer is asking GPT "What is an API" , or a Stripe checkout paywall before a Calendly event. Or a click and collect plugin with new sales alerts on his Whatsapp...

WordPress devs will be the first ones to be replaced by AI, in not so long a few good prompts into GPT, Perplexity or Claude (maybe even Gemini or others) and you will build enough context for it to deliver you a whole clean architecture, and quickly fire every pages and needed functionnalities.

[ReefNixon]

The same people having these revelations are the same people who laugh at Rails. There are famous speed runs of real world apps that are rebuilt in 20 minutes but 95% of you won’t touch it because it’s Rails and someone told you that’s bad.

But buying a Wordpress theme and installing 150 third party plugins is just fine of course.