WordPress Alternatives: Stick With PHP or Pivot to JavaScript?
With all the drama surrounding WordPress over the past several weeks, many developers and IT managers have been looking into alternative open source publishing systems — Ghost, Payload and Drupal are just a few names being discussed. Not only that but there is a sense that despite its current dominance on the web, WordPress is an outdated way to publish in 2024 due to its continued reliance on PHP. So, what better time to consider a change in strategy?
In this post, we’ll look at some of the reasons (other than the obvious) why you should consider switching CMS systems — including whether to opt for a more modern, JavaScript-based system.
The Decline of PHP
Perhaps the biggest technical cause for concern over WordPress is its continued reliance on PHP, a web programming language that has declined in popularity by 40% over the past two years.
BuiltWith graph for PHP.
When I reported on those statistics back in April, I noted that the WordPress project has been trying to move away from PHP and use JavaScript for new developments. That’s according to Matt Mullenweg, the co-creator of WordPress and CEO of Automattic.
“I believe the majority of new code in WordPress is Javascript now, and has been for some time,” he said at WordCamp Asia 2024 in March, in response to an audience question. “So in many ways, you could argue, by what’s the majority of activity happening, that Gutenberg has made us sort of a JavaScript-first project.”
However, those words seem to have been contradicted in an article published just this month on the WordPress.com blog (run by Automattic), which states unequivocally that WordPress is still very much PHP-first:
“As a WordPress user, PHP is especially important. The programming language forms the basis of much of what WordPress can do. It’s what allows you to create, edit, and delete pages, posts, media, and other content. That’s why you see that a lot of files that end in .php when you look in the directory of any WordPress installation.”
PHP in WordPress; image via WordPress.com blog.
The blog post notes that “JavaScript has been playing a bigger and bigger role in the WordPress ecosystem, mainly because of the adoption of the Gutenberg editor,” however it adds that “PHP is still the main workhorse in the background.”
It’s also worth noting that Gutenberg — the controversial block-based user interface in WordPress — has been received poorly by many in the WordPress ecosystem. So it’s questionable how well WordPress has adapted to the JavaScript world we now live in.
JavaScript Alternatives
There are a number of trending CMS software projects that offer an alternative to the PHP reliance of WordPress, and seem better adapted to the ways of JavaScript.
One is Ghost, which is built on a modern Node.js technology stack. The documentation states that “at its heart, Ghost is a RESTful JSON API.” Its decoupled architecture along with current experiments in fediverse technology, make it an appealing choice for web developers and early adopters alike, although it doesn’t yet have the scope of a WordPress or a Drupal.
Ghost architecture; image via Ghost documentation.
One software system that does have the ambition of those long-running PHP CMSs is Payload, which describes itself as “a fully open-source, TypeScript-based headless CMS and application framework.” It’s been built with Node.js and React and claims to be a “code-first” CMS. In a recent developer walkthrough, David Eastman explained that “what Payload aims to do is to work with whatever frontend you want to use.”
Payload is currently in the process of moving to Next.js — it’s even positioning itself as the CMS of Next.js. It remains to be seen how successful that transition will be, but if you’re in a React developer environment, then it’s a viable option to check out.
Payload CEO James Mikrut talking about the move to Next.js.
PHP Alternatives
Although the likes of Ghost and Payload are more in tune with the current JavaScript-heavy era of web development, there are defenders of PHP out there. When I asked for feedback on social media, several people mentioned Craft CMS as a modern PHP-based alternative. The official Craft CMS Threads account itself piped up: “Don’t let WordPress fool you: PHP is a great, modern language! It’s come a long way in the past decade.”
One of Craft CMS’s users is Ernie Smith, an independent publisher who runs the website Tedium. He moved to Craft CMS in January 2019, noting that at the time “even I was shocked that I went with PHP”. But over the past five-plus years, Smith has come to realize that PHP is a good match for content-heavy websites:
“The language is often seen as extremely out of date in today’s environment, an uncool language compared to Go or Rust, and less flexible than JavaScript. But when the goal is to deliver content, you want consistency and a big community. PHP has that in spades.”
The Craft CMS Plugin Store; image via Craft CMS documentation.
Craft CMS is a modern PHP alternative, but don’t forget Drupal — an open source CMS that also runs on PHP and is actually older than WordPress! Like Mullenweg, Drupal’s creator Dries Buytaert runs a services company based on the open source software he controls — in Buytaert’s case, his company is called Acquia. In a recent interview, Buytaert told me that he views Drupal these days as a “digital experience platform” (DXP), so it is aimed mainly at the enterprise market.
Incidentally, Buytaert has weighed in on the WordPress drama. In a blog post earlier this month, he laid out how the Drupal project has solved what he calls “the Maker-Taker problem” — where companies build businesses on top of open source software, but don’t necessarily give enough back to the community (this is what Mullenweg has alleged against WP Engine). Drupal implemented a “contribution credit system” to address this problem.
WordPress Forks
Of course, the easiest way to move off WordPress would be to switch to a fork of the WordPress software. ClassicPress, a fork of WordPress without the Gutenberg editor and block system, is probably the most viable alternative currently. As Joe Brockmeier explained on The LWN.net (an open source news and information blog):
“It’s a small project with an active group of core contributors that has focused on preserving the pre-Gutenberg experience as well as a community governance system. The project recently “re-forked” (rebased) on WordPress 6.x, so most current plugins and themes work with ClassicPress if they do not require the block system.”
The ClassicPress interface will be very familiar to WP users.
Conclusion
Moving away from WordPress would be a big undertaking for most organizations, but as the above article lays out: there is no shortage of alternatives. Some may want to stick with PHP, in which case the likes of Drupal and Craft CMS are good options; but others may want to go with a more modern take on CMS’s, which is where software like Ghost and Payload come in. Either way, it’s a good time to at least look into alternatives — especially if you prefer your open source without the drama.
