Updated on December 10, 2021
Several weeks ago, I posted in the last blog status update that I’ve been pondering which blogging platform to switch to. The “TLDR” explanation: I dislike the new Gutenberg editor in WordPress, and that, plus a few other factors, prompted me to look for an alternative.
After all this time, and much research, I’ve decided for now to move the blog to ClassicPress. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress that keeps the previous WYSIWYG editor, and excludes the newer Gutenberg aspects.
The previous noted pros and cons still stand. The cons are that ClassicPress is still very new, plus it inherits all of WordPress’ other downsides. That said, the other WordPress alternatives I looked at, as previously stated, also had their own downsides. For the most part, I suspect it’s a mix of:
- WordPress’ dominance (running about a third of all sites online).
- Other platforms lacking some feature or aspect of WordPress (media handling, etc.).
- The alternatives I examined either: were finicky to install/use; lacked a major feature I enjoyed in WordPress; had no or convoluted means of migrating an existing WordPress blog (Ghost, Grav); or treated the terms “user friendly” and “usability” as alien concepts.
So for now, I’m giving ClassicPress a go, with the hope it offers its own positive improvements on WordPress and forges its own path. Fortunately, migrating to ClassicPress was easy, per the instructions on its site.
As for issues so far: Jetpack (as I figured) doesn’t seem to work on ClassicPress, as it expects a “newer” WordPress version (5.0 or higher). Thus, I had to look for a few replacements forJetpack, particularly social share buttons and related posts.
Overall, things seem fine for now. That said, I’m still open to other alternative blogging platforms. I’ll keep an eye on other options, in case ClassicPress doesn’t work out, or I change my mind.
