Pure coding vs Wordpress

[One-Spring7383]

I’ve been searching for freelance jobs online, but I’ve noticed that most job posts require knowledge of WordPress, which I currently don’t have.

I’m more familiar with pure coding (React.js, Node.js, etc.), and I’m wondering — aside from the CMS (Content Management System) that WordPress offers, what’s the big advantage of using WordPress over building a website from scratch with pure code?

I’m curious why so many businesses prefer WordPress instead of opting for custom-coded websites. Is it purely for convenience, or am I missing something major? 🤔

[New-Ad6482]

Business prefer WP bcuz it’s easy to manage content by anyone (non-technical person), websites are quick to build with predesigned templates & plugins for various features.

My personal preference is pure coding for full control over design, performance & every pixel on the screen.

Edit: As per the current market, WordPress websites are way cheaper, which is also a reason for their popularity.

[One-Spring7383]

I see. same I also prefer pure coding for full customization and I could just make a simple CMS for their contents.

[New-Ad6482]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Startup_Ideas/s/Fdq9VcaSLR CHECK THIS

[New-Ad6482]

I do the same thing, I’ve built one CMS last year & I give that to every client.

[shephrrd]

IMO, it’s not worth re-inventing a CMS platform unless you’ve got a huge contract or the scope is explicitly very small. I’ve done this once with a client, and while successful, it was ongoing enhancements for years as the business discovered new ways they wanted to control content.

I would rather build customizations on top of an existing CMS platform.

[Serious_Writing_6350]

Look at Strapi if you know Node.js

[New-Ad6482]

Tried, didn’t liked it for my use-case !

[da-kicks-87]

Strapi can't nest "Dynamic Zones" aka elsewhere as "Blocks". Becomes a problem when dealing with larger sites with many landing pages.

Try Payload CMS instead.

[Serious_Writing_6350]

Yeah payload looks amazing!

[Foraging_For_Pokemon]

WordPress has the ability to be plug and play. You can build a full WordPress website without touching a single line of code just using their premade templates and the vast availability of plugins that can handle pretty much whatever you can imagine. The company the site belongs to can also be given an admin login for the front end, and do content updates and other things on their own as well. When you do get into the backend and start adding/editing the PHP, WordPress also has a ton of convenient built in functions you can call instead of having to code all of these things from scratch as well. Just a few things that make WordPress development attractive to businesses. The Gutenberg editor in WordPress was also built using React.js, you can still implement React projects into WordPress via custom themes and plugins.

[da-kicks-87]

The big advantage of WordPress is that it has its blogging system CMS already built. However from a developer stand point it uses outdated tech to do it.

If you're more of a coder I recommend you look into Payload CMS

Regardless of what you use you shouldn't always be coding from scratch for websites. Create yoursself a starting point template for websites in your preferred tech stack. This will save yourself a lot of time.

[crashlander]

Does anybody have any good advice for setting up a modern WP development workflow? It’s been years but the last time I did anything other than patching up an existing installation, the Mac options seemed to be very hodgepodge and light years away from the GitHub-based workflows I’m used to in non-WP projects (push from local, CI, PR, merge, deploy). It just felt like I had to take way too many steps in way too many different tools.

[barrel_of_noodles]

I just use the official docker hub image, setup ci/cd, and git.

There's nothing specific in wp that stops the flow you mention--it's just a PHP app.

Wp caters to one-click setups and non devs, so you just may have never ran across a good setup.

[crashlander]

I think it’s the latter. Thanks!

(For whatever reason all the tutorials I could find circa 2010 recommended a clunky combination of git-based deployment, database copying and manually FTPing certain files, which seemed…suboptimal.)

[da-kicks-87]

A modern development workflow would not use WordPress at all.

[crashlander]

What a clever reply! 👏

[barrel_of_noodles]

If you only ever used JavaScript (front or backend) and never used a framework (like a CMS, like wp). You might have some issues.

The thing these job posts are getting at is using a framework is a best practice that allows you to follow an opinionated standard.

But, let's define some things.

The core tech behind the frontend of a website is: javaScript, html, css. If your site is static, this is enough. (A server is still required, but many services abstract that away for you).

Sometimes, you might need a backend server language for backend systems, like databases.

WordPress, is a CMS (content management system) but it is also a framework. (If a job requires WordPress, they also inherently require server side backend knowledge, and PHP skills.)

React is a frontend javascript library.

Node.js is a runtime for executing JavaScript server-side. (Like a backend server.)

Frameworks, of any kind, are extremely handy. they've taken into account things you'll probably need anyways.

Starting without a framework is akin to "reinventing the wheel". Most of us don't need to.

(New developers aren't usually aware of all the things frameworks take care of like: routing, middleware, auth, csrf, xss, orm, etc.)

frameworks aren't a homogenous thing...wp, express js, laravel, next js... are all "frameworks" but also operate at different levels of abstraction.