To All The Guys With Websites

If you use self hosted wordpress, you must be insane to change.

Yep I'm with 'thedark' Wordpress is just the standard these days, so flexible and easy to setup! It just makes everything a lot quicker to get up and running.

There are things like Joomla and Drupal but I have never tried them myself. I have a friend that has been developing a site in Drupal for the past 3 years and it has been a complete PITA but then it is quite a complex model he is trying to create!

My opinion is to stick with Wordpress or go to HTML if you know it well enough.

I use only self-hosted WordPress. Am very happy with it. Can't be beat for all kinds of sites.

I like Drupal and Joomla, both of them could be turning into a more complex websites by touching their codes.

I don't like WordPress while I'm building the complex websites because it needs to write a lot of functions in order to make something that we called custom post type. Yes, we could use plugin to accomplish that, but it still not enough flexible.

Yet, I still use WordPress as in IM world, there is no need to build a complex sites though.

I can't say I've found any CMS that even compares to Wordpress. It has such a following and the wordpress community is amazing.

All the plugins, tools, themes, etc. that are created exclusively for Wordpress websites sell Wordpress as your stand alone CMS easily.

I don't know how long you've given Wordpress, but unless you like to dive into major coding and make a website from scratch (been there, done that, no fun...), or there are some major flaws you notice with it, I would recommend sticking with it and learning everything you can about it.

I use self hosted wordpress sites for all my websites.

I was building websites long before WordPress (or even Dreamweaver) existed. After Adobe bought Dreamweaver from Macromedia (before WordPress appeared), I switched to Dreamweaver for a few years. But for the last 3-4 years I've been doing mostly WordPress. Once in a while I still build and test something in Dreamweaver and then drop it into WordPress - like a complex CSS or a weird table (yes, once in a great while I actually need a table).

I can develop an equivalent website in WordPress for 1/2 the time and 1/2 the cost of doing so in Dreamweaver.

With a bit of HTML, CSS and PHP coding, a good commercial frameworks and themes (and of course the best plugins), you can make WordPress somewhat more flexible. Naturally, when you build from scratch, like with Dreamweaver, you have the most flexibility. But as mentioned above most smaller commercial sites don't need a lot of flexibility.

Same.. I have been using Wordpress since my first website, I just got a problem with the ".wordpress.com"

Self hosted Wordpress all the way. If you set up a base WP installation using WordPress › Duplicator « WordPress Plugins I can have a wordpress installation up and running with my favourite plugins and themes installed in less than 30 minutes. The longest thing I have to wait for now with new sites is the domain propagation

Unless you enjoy the coding aspects of websites you'd be mad to go with static HTML, and WP is so SEO friendly, had so many funky plugins and themes that it beats the old days of manual creation for me. Which gives you more time to concentrate on the marketing and sales, which is what you should be doing 80% of the time in any business...!

I'm one of the rare guys here who don't like WP. I just don't like the feel of it. Besides, about a year and a half ago I realized you couldn't password-protect the admin folder of a WP site with a .htaccess without locking the users out as their own panels are located into the same folder (I don't know if it has changed since) and this alone was a good enough reason for me not to use it for any serious project. I get attacks every day and I'm glad my admin area is entirely password-protected in such a manner...
I'm a Joomla fan and in the past 2 years I've been building all kinds of websites with it, and all with free components. I think the only usage I'm still missing is for Amazon stores, I haven't found a solution to that yet (but I haven't been looking into it for months though).

Seb.

I use Hostgator, seems to be working fine for now, but im no expert in the field of hosting, i certainly always hear alot of word, about wordpress.

There's a wide gap between "hating" and "not liking the feel of it"... I've never said I hated WP. I even understand why a lot of people use it (it's probably the easiest solution for beginners). The OP asked a question, I replied, that's all.

As for the .htaccess protection, you got that one wrong: the password IS encrypted inside the .htpasswd file, and that file is outside of the document root, so inaccessible through normal web access. You'd need to already have a hand on the server to access it, at which point having password-protected a folder or not would make no difference anyway... But unless you reach that point, password-protecting your admin area is a safeguard again lots of smaller attack attempts.
In the way I use it it has nothing to do with sessions, either. Joomla's admin area has its own identification mechanism just like WP's does. Adding a .htaccess password acts as a second layer of protection, preventing direct attacks on any file of the admin area (you don't need to open a session to try and attack the file of your choice, but if you're being asked a password even before you can actually see / load that file then you can't attack it). The objective is to make the potential pirate's life more difficult. The harder it is for them to hack into your website, the better.

@Ian: as I've already said, "I don't know if it has changed since". So no, I haven't checked and indeed, I have no reason to as I don't need it.

Dude, don't even worry about changing unless you are facing some any problem(which is rare)

One thing you should consider is... ease of building a good looking website. Wordpress makes it really easy to build websites... I mean good looking websites.

A year ago, I used X Site Pro to build html websites. My idea then was... afterall everything boils down to HTML.. why bother with wordpress. Later, I was forced to change to wordpress because the site I created with X Site Pro looked awful.

By the way, I do not know PHP or CSS except some basic html. If I were to build a great looking website like wordpress (where I simply install a theme to completely change the look) using XSitePro, it would have been impossible for me. Unless there is a great need to learn, why invest time in that if you can get things done quickly using a simple free theme or premium theme bought from others. Why re-invent the wheel?

Anyway... these are my thoughts.

Using Drupal for complex and big websites for last 4 years.
Wordpress for small and simple.

Hi,

Lets put it this way - if you follow the links in any members signature that has posted here and view source, you'll find wp-content in the source code.

For the most part we all use wordpress

I have always loved the simplicity of HTML and CSS sites, I design Wordpress templates so I can't be against the product, but I like to have more control on what I can do with sites, so HTML is the best way to go for me...

I use weebly for many years. It's simple and easy. When I advertise my website I just create a hyper link so people don't see the weebly unless they're on my website page.

I haven't used WP yet but if it's as simple as it is I just might try that out.

I have always coded my own websites from scratch, HTML/PHP/CSS. Although in the last few months i have setup some simple Wordpress sites for clients that want an easy to use CMS.

I still don't know enough about the inner workings of Wordpress to have a valid opinion on its pro's and cons.

Weebly is good for amateur because of its low startup.
Do note that you are at the mercy of the providers.
They can easily ban or penalized your account anytime.

Stick to Wordpress. There are lots of advantages to it
1. Lots of plugins that can make your Internet marketing easily
2. Relative easy to learn compared to Joomla, etc
3. It is free. You can use it anytime
4. Easily searched/indexed by search engines

If subdomain, WordPress, Squidoo, Hubpages, and Blogger are good. But if you have money for self-hosted site, go for a self-hosted WP site. There are lots of things you can do with self-hosted sites. You also don't have to worry that your site will be taken down, because it's self-hosted.

I am a huge fan of Wordpress for self hosted sites. There really is so much you can do. it seems like there is an endless number of plugins to use as well as the wide variety of themes. I previously used a few other methods but once I switched to WP and do not expect to change. As for free domains site I find Squidoo works very well.

Wordpress is always my first option.

Your other options would be to use Drupal, joomla, or any other CMS to manage content.

I look at wordpress blogs as a tool and NOT a website. One of the problems with wordpress is that it is not the ideal platform to sell. I does do very good at driving traffic to websites.

Because wordpress is an open platform there are always a ton of changes and updates. When you update what was functioning correctly is now not working. When a lot of plugins are used, they can be in conflict with other plugins. It is a hodge podge put together to do just some of the things you want to do.

Somehow no one plugin does exactly what you want and you just have to settle

There is no real security with a wordpress blog. All the various plugins can cause all kinds of security holes. I always hear of wordpress blogs that are hacked. I could go on and on with wordpress problems.

I developed my own content management system (software) it is bigger that wordpress and built in a modular format, which allows me to add new modules very easy without creating a bunch of security holes.

It uses PayPal's Adaptive API and I can do instant payments at the point of sale on everysale. I can do single payments, subscription payments, subscription payments with a trial, a dimesale payment solution, a Kunaki payment solution and a shopping cart that also uses the PayPal Adaptive API.

It will pay admin, partners, affiliates, brokers and affiliate managers at the point of sale.

It can centralize unlimited websites on unlimited domains or manage unlimited websites on one domain.

It will do complete sales funnels, starting with squeeze page, main product upsells and downsells.

It can incorporate any autoresponder into the script and has unlimited membership levels.

It can drip content, restrict content and protect content. It has dynamic download pages that can restrict the number of downloads and makes it impossible for buyers to see the real download files.

It has a partner module that allows admin to take multiple partners on different project and keep everything separate. It has an Ads module that makes it easier to work joint ventures and track the results.

It has all kinds of advantages over wordpress and the plugins mainly because of its flexibility. It does not use templates increasing flexibility.

It has more affiliate tools than any other affiliate program.

And it works with wordpress without being a plugin to sacrifice security.

It has several hundred features and I can't list them all here. So plugins are not needed to get it to do exactly what you want done.

Heck it even comes with a great helpdesk.

With wordpress, if you want it to do something new, you better start looking for a plugin the will make it work.

With my system you just create a page and let my system bring it to life.

The name of my system is 'Action Plus Marketing' and is designed for marketing. If you wanted to do something in marketing online, 'Action Plus Marketing' will do it.

Until you use something better, you don't know how bad wordpress really is.

I hope this helps,
Steve Yakim

For what? Just stick with wordpress (on your own domain).

I use wp for all self host websites on my hostgator vps. Just snatch a domain and install wp in a few seconds. Other cms could be Joomla and Drupal. Never use them as I am not that familiar in coding. WP is the best.

Self-Hosted Word Press is best if you are working on a Blog, Joomla is good for websites you want to customize and if you know web programming, Magento can be used for E-commerce websites..

Like any other else here, been using self-hosted Wordpress for years now but if you wan't other site, I suggest CMS.

Blogspot works awesome in my case. Maybe because blogspot is "in relationship" with Google, so they will support it in their page rank. One more thing about blogspot, it match with my method which is using quantity over quality, right now I have around 25 blogs in a specific niche. I book every keywords that have relation with my niche, and use blogspot platform to make a web out of it.