{"slug": "wordpress", "name": "WordPress", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "Open-source PHP content management system for building blogs and websites, extended through themes and plugins.", "recommenders": 12, "commenters": 46, "warners": 20, "score": -3.656, "rising": 0.05, "first": "2025-11-09", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "Liked for its large plugin ecosystem, including WooCommerce, and for getting a self-hosted blog or simple site running without touching code.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 12, "neutral": 13, "compare": 2, "warn": 22}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 5, 0, 1, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": ["Plugin ecosystem", "Easy simple sites"], "caveat": "Plugin security", "short_quote": "nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that.", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://wordpress.org", "pricing": "open source", "aliases": ["WordPress"], "verdict": [{"text": "Liked for its large plugin ecosystem, including WooCommerce,", "cites": [{"id": 803012288, "item_id": 50188268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188268", "by": "Exoristos", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's very extensible.", "excerpt": "It's very extensible. Take a look at CiviCRM, Give, and many other sophisticated extensions, not to mention WooCommerce. Drupal-based businesses facing a complex upgrade often found Wordpress could do everything they needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "extensible CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation"}, {"id": 779370097, "item_id": 48710631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710631", "by": "basch", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d almost say the opposite. For a simple website it\u2019s overkill. For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility. Woocommerce is nearly unrivaled. There isn\u2019t another ecosystem like it. I would think this community would lean towards the open source leaning products to the shopifys.", "context": "", "use_case": "serious websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 762230400, "item_id": 47639400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639400", "by": "_the_inflator", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that.", "excerpt": "What constitutes a Wordpress Site? The 3 page hobby site or the 100th of pages of a large company? There is a reason why Wordpress is (open source!) dominating the space ever since or more precisely, many niches. To be honest, I had my fair share of \"You might not need Wordpress\" but in the end, nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that. I see no conntenter. A", "context": "builds sites for customers", "use_case": "client websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}]}, {"text": " and for getting a self-hosted blog or simple site running without touching code.", "cites": [{"id": 797759776, "item_id": 49859986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859986", "by": "bloggie", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN.", "excerpt": "Indeed I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN. I just wanted a simple self hosted blog platform with WYSIWYG editor. There are not many that are free; there are plenty that are not WYSIWYG, then there is the stuff on HN like Hugo that is reserved for experienced Linux devs and no one else.", "context": "wanted a simple self-hosted blog with WYSIWYG editor", "use_case": "self-hosted blog", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave"}, {"id": 779359120, "item_id": 48709945, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709945", "by": "dd-sharma", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version.", "excerpt": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version. In your question \"new websites for beginner\" indicates that the user is a beginner and wants to build websites. If websites have simple and static content that don't involve any serious stuff (e.g. e-commerce) then WP is probably ok. But for serious work i won't use it.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal blog, self-hosted", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 799001840, "item_id": 49937615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937615", "by": "writtenone", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write", "excerpt": "I prefer to write words not code. I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write instead of messing with Markdown (or an entire separate system), CI pipelines, custom markup hacks for page features, Emacs cruft, etc.. Yeah WordPress is a security nightmare, but Ghost's editor sucks and there's no viable open-source alternatives with modern security and features.", "context": "prefers writing over code", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc"}, {"id": 779361552, "item_id": 48710097, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710097", "by": "not_your_vase", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job.", "excerpt": "What's your goal? If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job. If you want to learn web development, then I'd start it with a local http server (apache/nginx/whatever's your poison) and start writing html/css/js by hand, and see how it builds up line by line.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple site", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}]}, {"text": " The most common complaint is security risk from plugins,", "cites": [{"id": 764115521, "item_id": 47757220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757220", "by": "ashishb", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model.", "excerpt": "WordPress was great because of the plugins. WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model. I moved to Hugo and encourage others to do so - https://ashishb.net/tech/wordpress-to-hugo/", "context": "", "use_case": "website", "switched_from": "", "story": "Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them"}, {"id": 762227778, "item_id": 47639236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639236", "by": "torm", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "excerpt": "I wouldn\u2019t drop WordPress for Astro - but I did for Hugo. Never been happier. My perspective comes from enterprise: we use(d) a marketing agency to run two websites. A few months ago I discovered our team was spending 30+ minutes just to publish a blog post written by a product manager. Everything was built on Elementor blocks. Articles pasted from Word kept breaking styles. 20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "context": "enterprise team", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 761778784, "item_id": 47611174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611174", "by": "p0w3n3d", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "really this is sad the WP is so vulnerable just by the plugins installation", "excerpt": "I used to host a wordpress on my server for some people who configured it. However, when some bots got there, I was unable to keep them at bay. I upgraded WP's version, but the Wordpress had some vulnerable plugin, and I was unable to find out what path did the attack go. I only could find that the malicious files were uploaded into images/ directory and run from there. That's something I blame PHP for (and of course", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security"}, {"id": 779357248, "item_id": 48709828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709828", "by": "ceejayoz", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress is a giant nest of security holes.", "excerpt": "No. WordPress is a giant nest of security holes.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}]}, {"text": " followed by heavy maintenance and complexity that many call overkill for static sites.", "cites": [{"id": 780579264, "item_id": 48786204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48786204", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d argue even in the former Wordpress is a poor choice. Yes the ecosystem is big. But Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites. This is a cost and maintenance issue: you need a backend, you have to maintain it. Maintaining Wordpress is notoriously difficult and time consuming. So sure, the \u201ccost\u201d of Wordpress appears low because of the ecosystem. But you\u2019re trading upfront cost for recurri", "context": "", "use_case": "static websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779371554, "item_id": 48710722, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710722", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment.", "excerpt": "No. Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment. There\u2019s just a lot that goes on with Wordpress, and you\u2019d need a VPS to deploy it just by the nature of Wordpress. If you\u2019re building a static site - meaning, a site which does not have any forms which require backend functions - you should use a static site generator. If you\u2019re not building a static site, I recommend starting with a static site. It", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779431104, "item_id": 48714444, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48714444", "by": "toozitax", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Yea wordpress is overly complex for no reason at all.", "excerpt": "Yea wordpress is overly complex for no reason at all. And suprisingly learning html is easier haha", "context": "", "use_case": "building websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Plugin ecosystem", "summary": "Commenters say plugins like WooCommerce and CiviCRM let it handle almost any need.", "quotes": [{"id": 803012288, "item_id": 50188268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188268", "by": "Exoristos", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's very extensible.", "excerpt": "It's very extensible. Take a look at CiviCRM, Give, and many other sophisticated extensions, not to mention WooCommerce. Drupal-based businesses facing a complex upgrade often found Wordpress could do everything they needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "extensible CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation"}, {"id": 779370097, "item_id": 48710631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710631", "by": "basch", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d almost say the opposite. For a simple website it\u2019s overkill. For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility. Woocommerce is nearly unrivaled. There isn\u2019t another ecosystem like it. I would think this community would lean towards the open source leaning products to the shopifys.", "context": "", "use_case": "serious websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 762230400, "item_id": 47639400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639400", "by": "_the_inflator", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that.", "excerpt": "What constitutes a Wordpress Site? The 3 page hobby site or the 100th of pages of a large company? There is a reason why Wordpress is (open source!) dominating the space ever since or more precisely, many niches. To be honest, I had my fair share of \"You might not need Wordpress\" but in the end, nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that. I see no conntenter. A", "context": "builds sites for customers", "use_case": "client websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}]}, {"label": "Easy simple sites", "summary": "Recommended as a quick, adequate way to get a blog or basic site up.", "quotes": [{"id": 779512224, "item_id": 48719514, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48719514", "by": "fdgwhite", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If the former, WP is fine.", "excerpt": "Do you want to create websites or learn to create websites. If the former, WP is fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "creating websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779361552, "item_id": 48710097, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710097", "by": "not_your_vase", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job.", "excerpt": "What's your goal? If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job. If you want to learn web development, then I'd start it with a local http server (apache/nginx/whatever's your poison) and start writing html/css/js by hand, and see how it builds up line by line.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple site", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 761791616, "item_id": 47611976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611976", "by": "Growtika", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I prefer it over any other CMS for reasons I can't fully explain.", "excerpt": "I have a love/hate relationship with WordPress. I prefer it over any other CMS for reasons I can't fully explain. Probably nostalgia. I love the editor, the sidebar, the ability to find niche plugins in an endless marketplace, and how easy it is to get a site running. What I don't love is how insecure it is. You're entirely dependent on plugins (if you're not a developer), and if WordPress updates and a plugin goes i", "context": "", "use_case": "personal sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security"}]}, {"label": "Self-hostable", "summary": "Can run on any host or your own hardware, with open, portable data.", "quotes": [{"id": 795375296, "item_id": 49710956, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49710956", "by": "Raed667", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can host a wordpress wherever you like with whichever provider you like or even on a potato in a closet.", "excerpt": "Assuming this is a goodfaith argument for a second ! You can host a wordpress wherever you like with whichever provider you like or even on a potato in a closet. The format and data are open and can be switched to any platform at any time without an account or login. RSS !", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "XCancel service is suspended until further notice"}, {"id": 779359120, "item_id": 48709945, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709945", "by": "dd-sharma", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version.", "excerpt": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version. In your question \"new websites for beginner\" indicates that the user is a beginner and wants to build websites. If websites have simple and static content that don't involve any serious stuff (e.g. e-commerce) then WP is probably ok. But for serious work i won't use it.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal blog, self-hosted", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 786270496, "item_id": 49141906, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141906", "by": "bogomil", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use wordpress as self-hosted and write.as online", "excerpt": "I use wordpress as self-hosted and write.as online", "context": "", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform?"}]}, {"label": "Writer-friendly editor", "summary": "A WYSIWYG editor that hides technical complexity so people can just write.", "quotes": [{"id": 799001840, "item_id": 49937615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937615", "by": "writtenone", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write", "excerpt": "I prefer to write words not code. I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write instead of messing with Markdown (or an entire separate system), CI pipelines, custom markup hacks for page features, Emacs cruft, etc.. Yeah WordPress is a security nightmare, but Ghost's editor sucks and there's no viable open-source alternatives with modern security and features.", "context": "prefers writing over code", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc"}, {"id": 797759776, "item_id": 49859986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859986", "by": "bloggie", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN.", "excerpt": "Indeed I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN. I just wanted a simple self hosted blog platform with WYSIWYG editor. There are not many that are free; there are plenty that are not WYSIWYG, then there is the stuff on HN like Hugo that is reserved for experienced Linux devs and no one else.", "context": "wanted a simple self-hosted blog with WYSIWYG editor", "use_case": "self-hosted blog", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave"}, {"id": 761791616, "item_id": 47611976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611976", "by": "Growtika", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I prefer it over any other CMS for reasons I can't fully explain.", "excerpt": "I have a love/hate relationship with WordPress. I prefer it over any other CMS for reasons I can't fully explain. Probably nostalgia. I love the editor, the sidebar, the ability to find niche plugins in an endless marketplace, and how easy it is to get a site running. What I don't love is how insecure it is. You're entirely dependent on plugins (if you're not a developer), and if WordPress updates and a plugin goes i", "context": "", "use_case": "personal sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security"}]}, {"label": "Learning sysadmin", "summary": "Installing it from bare metal is suggested as a gentle intro to Linux administration.", "quotes": [{"id": 733842240, "item_id": 45865140, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45865140", "by": "jamesbelchamber", "date": "2025-11-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Get them to install WordPress on a different second-hand computer.", "excerpt": "Get them to install WordPress on a different second-hand computer. Other things exist to host but WordPress has a lot of resources out there, and going from bare metal to WordPress introduces a lot of staples of Linux systems administration while still being fairly easy to do. FWIW this is what I recommend to adults wanting to get into the industry as well, I would just usually direct them from there towards automati", "context": "", "use_case": "learning Linux sysadmin", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How would you set up a child\u2019s first Linux computer?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Plugin security", "summary": "Many describe plugins as a constant source of vulnerabilities and compromises.", "quotes": [{"id": 764115521, "item_id": 47757220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757220", "by": "ashishb", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model.", "excerpt": "WordPress was great because of the plugins. WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model. I moved to Hugo and encourage others to do so - https://ashishb.net/tech/wordpress-to-hugo/", "context": "", "use_case": "website", "switched_from": "", "story": "Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them"}, {"id": 762227778, "item_id": 47639236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639236", "by": "torm", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "excerpt": "I wouldn\u2019t drop WordPress for Astro - but I did for Hugo. Never been happier. My perspective comes from enterprise: we use(d) a marketing agency to run two websites. A few months ago I discovered our team was spending 30+ minutes just to publish a blog post written by a product manager. Everything was built on Elementor blocks. Articles pasted from Word kept breaking styles. 20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "context": "enterprise team", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 761778784, "item_id": 47611174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611174", "by": "p0w3n3d", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "really this is sad the WP is so vulnerable just by the plugins installation", "excerpt": "I used to host a wordpress on my server for some people who configured it. However, when some bots got there, I was unable to keep them at bay. I upgraded WP's version, but the Wordpress had some vulnerable plugin, and I was unable to find out what path did the attack go. I only could find that the malicious files were uploaded into images/ directory and run from there. That's something I blame PHP for (and of course", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security"}]}, {"label": "Maintenance burden", "summary": "Administration, deployment and updates are called complex and time-consuming.", "quotes": [{"id": 780579264, "item_id": 48786204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48786204", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d argue even in the former Wordpress is a poor choice. Yes the ecosystem is big. But Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites. This is a cost and maintenance issue: you need a backend, you have to maintain it. Maintaining Wordpress is notoriously difficult and time consuming. So sure, the \u201ccost\u201d of Wordpress appears low because of the ecosystem. But you\u2019re trading upfront cost for recurri", "context": "", "use_case": "static websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779371554, "item_id": 48710722, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710722", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment.", "excerpt": "No. Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment. There\u2019s just a lot that goes on with Wordpress, and you\u2019d need a VPS to deploy it just by the nature of Wordpress. If you\u2019re building a static site - meaning, a site which does not have any forms which require backend functions - you should use a static site generator. If you\u2019re not building a static site, I recommend starting with a static site. It", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 794322560, "item_id": 49645160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645160", "by": "stasomatic", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole.", "excerpt": "Who uses WP outside of legacy installs? I used to love it 15 or so years ago for side hustle work, but over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole. Plug-ins were nice, but that <?php...> inlining wasn't. I don't hate PHP, the things were just clumsy and messy inside the loop and I wasn't smart enough. What's the replacement these days in case I need to set up something simple quickly? Not Square Spac", "context": "used it about 15 years ago for side hustle work", "use_case": "side hustle websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence"}]}, {"label": "Overkill for static", "summary": "Seen as too heavy for simple or static sites, yet not powerful enough for complex ones.", "quotes": [{"id": 780579264, "item_id": 48786204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48786204", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d argue even in the former Wordpress is a poor choice. Yes the ecosystem is big. But Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites. This is a cost and maintenance issue: you need a backend, you have to maintain it. Maintaining Wordpress is notoriously difficult and time consuming. So sure, the \u201ccost\u201d of Wordpress appears low because of the ecosystem. But you\u2019re trading upfront cost for recurri", "context": "", "use_case": "static websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 762262752, "item_id": 47641422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47641422", "by": "snowwrestler", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress specifically ended up in no man\u2019s land for us.", "excerpt": "Wordpress specifically ended up in no man\u2019s land for us. Not powerful enough for big sites with complex content types and design systems, and too big of a pain for ephemeral microsites. For the latter we switched to Squarespace years ago, and are now exploring AI options.", "context": "", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 758764769, "item_id": 47422798, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47422798", "by": "nicbou", "date": "2026-03-18", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I'm glad I went with static sites and not WordPress.", "excerpt": "I have two fucking websites. One I live from. These days, it's pretty demoralising to run a website. Google AI overviews and LLMs have reduced traffic by over 60%, and that trend shows no sign of slowing down. These numbers are typical. At the same time, the cost and difficulty has raised because of misbehaving AI crawlers and bots attacking every moving part. I'm glad I went with static sites and not WordPress. So y", "context": "Runs websites, used to make websites for businesses", "use_case": "website hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "Have a Fucking Website"}]}, {"label": "Confusing backend", "summary": "The admin interface is hard to teach to non-technical content editors.", "quotes": [{"id": 802561409, "item_id": 50160088, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50160088", "by": "ChrisMarshallNY", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I despise having to walk people through WordPress' backend.", "excerpt": "One of the best things about Drupal (years ago, when I used to write plugins and themes), was that you could completely customize the backend, as well as the frontend, and that was a good thing, if you have low-tech users that author content. I despise having to walk people through WordPress' backend. But that rewriting the base system, every couple of years, was why I dropped it. Nowadays, with LLMs, it may be time ", "context": "", "use_case": "CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation"}, {"id": 805020544, "item_id": 50313784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313784", "by": "zenincognito", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress has become painfully hard to work with", "excerpt": "I have recently done the same analysis albeit lower level than yours. In your site I read the phrase \"A CMS for editors and developers\" and came to the exact same conclusion. Working with marketing teams and dealing with my own CMS pain points made me want to scratch my own itch, so I've been building a project of my own. WordPress has become painfully hard to work with, but static site generators even with platforms", "context": "works with marketing teams", "use_case": "CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tools Hacker News keeps asking for"}, {"id": 762227778, "item_id": 47639236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639236", "by": "torm", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "excerpt": "I wouldn\u2019t drop WordPress for Astro - but I did for Hugo. Never been happier. My perspective comes from enterprise: we use(d) a marketing agency to run two websites. A few months ago I discovered our team was spending 30+ minutes just to publish a blog post written by a product manager. Everything was built on Elementor blocks. Articles pasted from Word kept breaking styles. 20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "context": "enterprise team", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}]}, {"label": "Performance", "summary": "Some found it slow without caching plugins or awkward with database replicas.", "quotes": [{"id": 793695360, "item_id": 49605960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605960", "by": "m_mueller", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WP plugins are why I banned it everywhere.", "excerpt": "WP plugins are why I banned it everywhere. Last time I used it was many years ago, so not sure it still applies, but back then even caching was done in a plugin, without which it was unusably slow\u2026 just no.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We have a year to fix security everywhere"}, {"id": 796900400, "item_id": 49806275, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49806275", "by": "toast0", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Never had to worry anymore about long ass load times because the web servers were in 3 colos and wordpress wouldn't play nice with local read only mysql replicas.", "excerpt": "When I finally got approval to rewrite the company blog from Wordpress into something that was mostly static, it was the best week. I used PHP to do mobile/desktop and language selection, because PHP is pretty useful, and it can be pretty fast and secure if you only do simple things. Never had to worry again about sequencing updates where the update changed the database schema and I had a cluster of 6 web servers. Ne", "context": "", "use_case": "company blog", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordPress: Unauthenticated path traversal leading to conditional RCE"}]}], "who": [{"by": "elevation", "context": "serves many clients with WordPress sites", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50000411", "date": "2026-10-08"}, {"by": "writtenone", "context": "prefers writing over code", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937615", "date": "2026-10-02"}, {"by": "bloggie", "context": "wanted a simple self-hosted blog with WYSIWYG editor", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859986", "date": "2026-09-26"}, {"by": "paraschopra", "context": "writes 3-4 articles per month", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095244", "date": "2026-07-29"}, {"by": "n8n_and_coffee", "context": "marketer, not a designer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49028801", "date": "2026-07-23"}, {"by": "fernly", "context": "regular blogger", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981227", "date": "2026-07-20"}, {"by": "DamnInteresting", "context": "built sites on WordPress for over 20 years", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48714665", "date": "2026-06-28"}, {"by": "Beijinger", "context": "hosts a few WordPress sites", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001011", "date": "2026-05-03"}, {"by": "skprasad", "context": "used WordPress since about 2004", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47998301", "date": "2026-05-03"}, {"by": "_the_inflator", "context": "builds sites for customers", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639400", "date": "2026-04-04"}, {"by": "davidpaulyoung", "context": "uses it daily", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47390607", "date": "2026-03-15"}, {"by": "snowwrestler", "context": "former admin of WordPress and Drupal sites", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46015936", "date": "2025-11-22"}], "tags": ["self-hostable", "for bloggers", "for e-commerce", "for client site builders"], "use_cases": ["blogging", "website building", "cms", "websites", "client websites", "building websites"], "compared": [{"slug": "hugo", "name": "Hugo", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 4}, {"slug": "astro", "name": "Astro", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "squarespace", "name": "Squarespace", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}, {"slug": "next-js", "name": "Next.js", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 2}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "drupal", "name": "Drupal", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "github-pages", "name": "GitHub Pages", "co": 4, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709796", "title": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner", "mentions": 14}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47638075", "title": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50158408", "title": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49138177", "title": "Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform?", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47997339", "title": "Breaking Up with WordPress After Two Decades", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602832", "title": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"warn": 1}, "2026-02": {"warn": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-04": {"warn": 5, "compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 3}, "2026-06": {"warn": 6, "recommend": 5, "neutral": 2}, "2026-07": {"warn": 2, "neutral": 3}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {"warn": 3, "compare": 1, "recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 3, "warn": 3, "recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805020544, "item_id": 50313784, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313784", "by": "zenincognito", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress has become painfully hard to work with", "excerpt": "I have recently done the same analysis albeit lower level than yours. In your site I read the phrase \"A CMS for editors and developers\" and came to the exact same conclusion. Working with marketing teams and dealing with my own CMS pain points made me want to scratch my own itch, so I've been building a project of my own. WordPress has become painfully hard to work with, but static site generators even with platforms", "context": "works with marketing teams", "use_case": "CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tools Hacker News keeps asking for"}, {"id": 803822370, "item_id": 50238898, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50238898", "by": "ct520", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Using AI to update the legacy Wordpress theme just wasn\u2019t it.", "excerpt": "Same we moved from Wordpress to Hugo when looking to update our company site page. Using AI to update the legacy Wordpress theme just wasn\u2019t it. Had updated brand and style guide, Claude made short work of porting to Hugo and Google speed rankings were excellent even without cdn etc", "context": "", "use_case": "company website", "switched_from": "", "story": "Removing Next.js Got My Blog to 100 on Every Lighthouse Category"}, {"id": 803012288, "item_id": 50188268, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50188268", "by": "Exoristos", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's very extensible.", "excerpt": "It's very extensible. Take a look at CiviCRM, Give, and many other sophisticated extensions, not to mention WooCommerce. Drupal-based businesses facing a complex upgrade often found Wordpress could do everything they needed.", "context": "", "use_case": "extensible CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation"}, {"id": 802561409, "item_id": 50160088, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50160088", "by": "ChrisMarshallNY", "date": "2026-10-20", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I despise having to walk people through WordPress' backend.", "excerpt": "One of the best things about Drupal (years ago, when I used to write plugins and themes), was that you could completely customize the backend, as well as the frontend, and that was a good thing, if you have low-tech users that author content. I despise having to walk people through WordPress' backend. But that rewriting the base system, every couple of years, was why I dropped it. Nowadays, with LLMs, it may be time ", "context": "", "use_case": "CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Drupal is now light-years ahead of its reputation"}, {"id": 800267329, "item_id": 50016708, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50016708", "by": "alprado50", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "host almost 20 wordpress websites", "excerpt": "I have two VPS that i use to host almost 20 wordpress websites. I use FrankenPHP and the SQLite plugin to deploy them and i find it enjoyable. To create a new website I just copy a folder and change a few files. Pretty cool. Makes me wonder why would anybode decide to create a static site.", "context": "", "use_case": "websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?"}, {"id": 800006576, "item_id": 50000411, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50000411", "by": "elevation", "date": "2026-10-08", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have served many clients with wordpress sites", "excerpt": "I have served many clients with wordpress sites who would much rather pay to license a supported plugin than use a \"free\" plugin they have to support themselves.", "context": "serves many clients with WordPress sites", "use_case": "client websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Tell HN: GitHub refuses to remove cracked copies of my software after a month"}, {"id": 799001840, "item_id": 49937615, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937615", "by": "writtenone", "date": "2026-10-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write", "excerpt": "I prefer to write words not code. I use WordPress because it hides all the complexity and lets me just write instead of messing with Markdown (or an entire separate system), CI pipelines, custom markup hacks for page features, Emacs cruft, etc.. Yeah WordPress is a security nightmare, but Ghost's editor sucks and there's no viable open-source alternatives with modern security and features.", "context": "prefers writing over code", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc"}, {"id": 797759776, "item_id": 49859986, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49859986", "by": "bloggie", "date": "2026-09-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN.", "excerpt": "Indeed I use Wordpress and have never heard of automattic outside of HN. I just wanted a simple self hosted blog platform with WYSIWYG editor. There are not many that are free; there are plenty that are not WYSIWYG, then there is the stuff on HN like Hugo that is reserved for experienced Linux devs and no one else.", "context": "wanted a simple self-hosted blog with WYSIWYG editor", "use_case": "self-hosted blog", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic has a new board after failed attempt to put CEO on leave"}, {"id": 796900400, "item_id": 49806275, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49806275", "by": "toast0", "date": "2026-09-22", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Never had to worry anymore about long ass load times because the web servers were in 3 colos and wordpress wouldn't play nice with local read only mysql replicas.", "excerpt": "When I finally got approval to rewrite the company blog from Wordpress into something that was mostly static, it was the best week. I used PHP to do mobile/desktop and language selection, because PHP is pretty useful, and it can be pretty fast and secure if you only do simple things. Never had to worry again about sequencing updates where the update changed the database schema and I had a cluster of 6 web servers. Ne", "context": "", "use_case": "company blog", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordPress: Unauthenticated path traversal leading to conditional RCE"}, {"id": 795375296, "item_id": 49710956, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49710956", "by": "Raed667", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "You can host a wordpress wherever you like with whichever provider you like or even on a potato in a closet.", "excerpt": "Assuming this is a goodfaith argument for a second ! You can host a wordpress wherever you like with whichever provider you like or even on a potato in a closet. The format and data are open and can be switched to any platform at any time without an account or login. RSS !", "context": "", "use_case": "self-hosted blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "XCancel service is suspended until further notice"}, {"id": 794587744, "item_id": 49661734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49661734", "by": "paulrei", "date": "2026-09-11", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Wordpress' security track record isn't great, but I'm worried whether it would be safer if everybody builds their own CMS using AI.", "excerpt": "Wordpress' security track record isn't great, but I'm worried whether it would be safer if everybody builds their own CMS using AI. Yes, as a general-purpose CMS it has more attack surface, but there are more people working to harden and fix it than for all the little diverse AI-generated sites. I'd love the diversity of everybody being able to build the sites they want, though. Perhaps we'll see more static HTML/CSS", "context": "", "use_case": "CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Matt Mullenweg tells Automattic staff in Slack he's back in control after ouster"}, {"id": 794322560, "item_id": 49645160, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49645160", "by": "stasomatic", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "warn", "quote": "over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole.", "excerpt": "Who uses WP outside of legacy installs? I used to love it 15 or so years ago for side hustle work, but over time it gained weight and vulnerabilities, whack-a-mole. Plug-ins were nice, but that <?php...> inlining wasn't. I don't hate PHP, the things were just clumsy and messy inside the loop and I wasn't smart enough. What's the replacement these days in case I need to set up something simple quickly? Not Square Spac", "context": "used it about 15 years ago for side hustle work", "use_case": "side hustle websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence"}, {"id": 793695360, "item_id": 49605960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49605960", "by": "m_mueller", "date": "2026-09-08", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WP plugins are why I banned it everywhere.", "excerpt": "WP plugins are why I banned it everywhere. Last time I used it was many years ago, so not sure it still applies, but back then even caching was done in a plugin, without which it was unusably slow\u2026 just no.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We have a year to fix security everywhere"}, {"id": 786270496, "item_id": 49141906, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141906", "by": "bogomil", "date": "2026-08-02", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use wordpress as self-hosted and write.as online", "excerpt": "I use wordpress as self-hosted and write.as online", "context": "", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform?"}, {"id": 786258545, "item_id": 49141159, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49141159", "by": "blazingbane007", "date": "2026-08-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I would suggest. To give Wordpress a try. It's still popular", "excerpt": "If you don't want to. A blog system. On your machine. There is a thing called. A simple HTML, CSS JavaScript blocks. I would really suggest you check out Hugo. Where you write your blogs? In a certain language and it outputs into a simple HTML. Simple files. You don't need a back end server for this kind of a block. Unless you want. Comment section unless you want a fully blown features. And there's No Fear. Other th", "context": "", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Best Blogging Platform?"}, {"id": 785833201, "item_id": 49114575, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49114575", "by": "springtimesun", "date": "2026-07-30", "stance": "warn", "quote": "as someone who had loathed doing Wordpress client projects", "excerpt": "I see where this idea is coming from as someone who had loathed doing Wordpress client projects and I\u2019m not shitting on AI. You can see from my comments that I use AI a lot. But you\u2019ve got to edit presentation material into a human voice. It\u2019s your brand. It\u2019s my first impression of you. It\u2019s lazy. Claude has written so many of the phrases in just the first handful of paragraphs for me in written material so often th", "context": "former WordPress client project developer", "use_case": "client website projects", "switched_from": "", "story": "I finally did it, I forked WordPress"}, {"id": 785523906, "item_id": 49095244, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49095244", "by": "paraschopra", "date": "2026-07-29", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I now have a substack + a wordpress website.", "excerpt": "I used to pay Mailchimp $100+/month and would write 3-4 articles per month. It seemed illogical to me how much mailchimp would charge. I now have a substack + a wordpress website. An article goes to both places, and substack acts as a subscriber growth + email distribution tool for me.", "context": "writes 3-4 articles per month", "use_case": "personal website", "switched_from": "", "story": "Substack writers, you need a website"}, {"id": 784460818, "item_id": 49028801, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49028801", "by": "n8n_and_coffee", "date": "2026-07-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I do use wordpress themes extensively.", "excerpt": "To be honest, I did not know others are using AI to make cookie cutter looking landing pages. I've used AI to create landing pages. But from the sound of things, probably not the way others do. 1) I use a custom GPT to 'swipe' the appropriate concepts from one of the hundreds of winning b2b or b2c sales letter in my swipe file collection that best matches who I am selling to, and then have the GPT convert my notes an", "context": "marketer, not a designer", "use_case": "landing page templates", "switched_from": "", "story": "Are we in the era of AI slop landing pages?"}, {"id": 783699632, "item_id": 48981227, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48981227", "by": "fernly", "date": "2026-07-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "However it can't be \"indieweb\" because I used Wordpress.", "excerpt": "I've done, and still do, regular blogging. I have a domain, and everything I post is mine. However it can't be \"indieweb\" because I used Wordpress. Hence my current blog is dependent on a corporation, as were a couple of older ones that were built in Blogger (and still exist, last updated nearly a decade ago). That dependency is because isn't feasible for me to own my own server. If I did, it would either be virtual,", "context": "regular blogger", "use_case": "blogging", "switched_from": "Blogger", "story": "I joined the IndieWeb, here's what I learned"}, {"id": 780579264, "item_id": 48786204, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48786204", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-07-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d argue even in the former Wordpress is a poor choice. Yes the ecosystem is big. But Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites. This is a cost and maintenance issue: you need a backend, you have to maintain it. Maintaining Wordpress is notoriously difficult and time consuming. So sure, the \u201ccost\u201d of Wordpress appears low because of the ecosystem. But you\u2019re trading upfront cost for recurri", "context": "", "use_case": "static websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779512224, "item_id": 48719514, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48719514", "by": "fdgwhite", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If the former, WP is fine.", "excerpt": "Do you want to create websites or learn to create websites. If the former, WP is fine.", "context": "", "use_case": "creating websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779472033, "item_id": 48717002, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717002", "by": "nicbou", "date": "2026-06-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "It's a lot easier to implement backend functionality in not-Wordpress", "excerpt": "So do I, but those run on a separate Django backend. It's a lot easier to implement backend functionality in not-Wordpress", "context": "", "use_case": "backend functionality", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779434641, "item_id": 48714665, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48714665", "by": "DamnInteresting", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I've been building sites on WordPress for over 20 years, and it's fine", "excerpt": "I've been building sites on WordPress for over 20 years, and it's fine, but if I were building a new site today, I'd probably use ClassicPress[1]. It's a fork of WordPress that eliminates a lot of the cruft that WordPress has accumulated over the years. [1] https://www.classicpress.net/", "context": "built sites on WordPress for over 20 years", "use_case": "building websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779431104, "item_id": 48714444, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48714444", "by": "toozitax", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Yea wordpress is overly complex for no reason at all.", "excerpt": "Yea wordpress is overly complex for no reason at all. And suprisingly learning html is easier haha", "context": "", "use_case": "building websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779403648, "item_id": 48712728, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48712728", "by": "4thOfficial", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A few years ago Wordpress would have definitely been my go to, but there are a ton of alternatives now", "excerpt": "I've always been a big fan of the WordPress community, which is a part of how WordPress works. A few years ago Wordpress would have definitely been my go to, but there are a ton of alternatives now (great suggestions in the comments here)", "context": "", "use_case": "website building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779384900, "item_id": 48711556, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711556", "by": "cjk", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "In neither of those cases would I consider WordPress.", "excerpt": "Depends on your goal. If you\u2019re not interested in hand-maintaining the code of the website(s), and you just want a nice GUI for publishing pages/posts/etc., then I\u2019d say use some hosted platform like Squarespace. For actually learning how to build websites, start with something more low-level and barebones like a static site generator (Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc.), or even plain GitHub Pages without a static site gene", "context": "", "use_case": "website building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779377440, "item_id": 48711090, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48711090", "by": "frollogaston", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Wordpress is good. People complain about it because it's popular.", "excerpt": "Wordpress is good. People complain about it because it's popular. Or Github pages is also fine if you just want to write and host HTML.", "context": "", "use_case": "website building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779371554, "item_id": 48710722, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710722", "by": "preg_match", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment.", "excerpt": "No. Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment. There\u2019s just a lot that goes on with Wordpress, and you\u2019d need a VPS to deploy it just by the nature of Wordpress. If you\u2019re building a static site - meaning, a site which does not have any forms which require backend functions - you should use a static site generator. If you\u2019re not building a static site, I recommend starting with a static site. It", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779370240, "item_id": 48710640, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710640", "by": "daemonologist", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I would definitely not recommend WordPress.", "excerpt": "I would definitely not recommend WordPress. If you just want a website for cheap: Bearblog, carrd.co, etc. if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc. if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages. (Later, if you want to host the above (except the \"bells and whistles\" tier) yourself: Hetzner, Digital Ocean, etc.)", "context": "", "use_case": "website building", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779370097, "item_id": 48710631, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710631", "by": "basch", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility.", "excerpt": "I\u2019d almost say the opposite. For a simple website it\u2019s overkill. For a serious website there\u2019s not much else that has the extensibility. Woocommerce is nearly unrivaled. There isn\u2019t another ecosystem like it. I would think this community would lean towards the open source leaning products to the shopifys.", "context": "", "use_case": "serious websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779361552, "item_id": 48710097, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710097", "by": "not_your_vase", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job.", "excerpt": "What's your goal? If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job. If you want to learn web development, then I'd start it with a local http server (apache/nginx/whatever's your poison) and start writing html/css/js by hand, and see how it builds up line by line.", "context": "", "use_case": "simple site", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779359120, "item_id": 48709945, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709945", "by": "dd-sharma", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version.", "excerpt": "I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version. In your question \"new websites for beginner\" indicates that the user is a beginner and wants to build websites. If websites have simple and static content that don't involve any serious stuff (e.g. e-commerce) then WP is probably ok. But for serious work i won't use it.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal blog, self-hosted", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 779357248, "item_id": 48709828, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709828", "by": "ceejayoz", "date": "2026-06-28", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress is a giant nest of security holes.", "excerpt": "No. WordPress is a giant nest of security holes.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner"}, {"id": 772970352, "item_id": 48310647, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48310647", "by": "wonkyfruit", "date": "2026-05-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I found it very powerful but fiddly.", "excerpt": "I learned Web Design back in 2001, back when AltaVista was a more popular search engine than Google. Lol. I promptly fell out of love with the field and diverted my career. I used WordPress for the first time in 2025. I found it very powerful but fiddly. I have to admit I still prefer plain old HTML, CSS and JS. Dinosaur :D", "context": "", "use_case": "web publishing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordPress at 23"}, {"id": 768016178, "item_id": 48001011, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48001011", "by": "Beijinger", "date": "2026-05-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I always thought and was told that WP is the reason for a slow website. No, it was my host.", "excerpt": "After a terrible, possibly criminal experience with a hoster, I ended up with: https://www.interserver.net/ I am very happy. The speed is insane. I always thought and was told that WP is the reason for a slow website. No, it was my host. I pay around 10 USD per month but I think the smaller plans starts lower. For what it's worth, I am very happy with them. But I only host a few WP and FreshRSS. I think they support ", "context": "hosts a few WordPress sites", "use_case": "websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Breaking Up with WordPress After Two Decades"}, {"id": 767972816, "item_id": 47998301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47998301", "by": "skprasad", "date": "2026-05-03", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I stopped using it last year when Vibe Coding helped me build something with NextJS and Sanity", "excerpt": "I had been using WordPress since, what I remember, back in 2004 or 05. I think that was the first time I used WordPress and I stopped using it last year when Vibe Coding helped me build something with NextJS and Sanity and other CMSs as well. I've actually quite enjoyed the Vibe Coding part but I do miss WordPress from time to time.", "context": "used WordPress since about 2004", "use_case": "website CMS", "switched_from": "", "story": "Breaking Up with WordPress After Two Decades"}, {"id": 764115521, "item_id": 47757220, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757220", "by": "ashishb", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model.", "excerpt": "WordPress was great because of the plugins. WordPress is now a dangerous ecosystem because of the plugins and their current security model. I moved to Hugo and encourage others to do so - https://ashishb.net/tech/wordpress-to-hugo/", "context": "", "use_case": "website", "switched_from": "", "story": "Someone Bought 30 WordPress Plugins and Planted a Backdoor in All of Them"}, {"id": 762308944, "item_id": 47644309, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47644309", "by": "synergy20", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "both are too complicated for my personal sites", "excerpt": "I was a drupal user, then wordpress user, both are too complicated for my personal sites, so I used golang to build a cms with AI for my own use, easy and good enough to suit my needs. so yes, no more wordpress for me at all.", "context": "", "use_case": "personal sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 762262752, "item_id": 47641422, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47641422", "by": "snowwrestler", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "Wordpress specifically ended up in no man\u2019s land for us.", "excerpt": "Wordpress specifically ended up in no man\u2019s land for us. Not powerful enough for big sites with complex content types and design systems, and too big of a pain for ephemeral microsites. For the latter we switched to Squarespace years ago, and are now exploring AI options.", "context": "", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 762230400, "item_id": 47639400, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639400", "by": "_the_inflator", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that.", "excerpt": "What constitutes a Wordpress Site? The 3 page hobby site or the 100th of pages of a large company? There is a reason why Wordpress is (open source!) dominating the space ever since or more precisely, many niches. To be honest, I had my fair share of \"You might not need Wordpress\" but in the end, nothing beats its versatility, its rights management and options. There is always a plugin for that. I see no conntenter. A", "context": "builds sites for customers", "use_case": "client websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 762227778, "item_id": 47639236, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47639236", "by": "torm", "date": "2026-04-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "excerpt": "I wouldn\u2019t drop WordPress for Astro - but I did for Hugo. Never been happier. My perspective comes from enterprise: we use(d) a marketing agency to run two websites. A few months ago I discovered our team was spending 30+ minutes just to publish a blog post written by a product manager. Everything was built on Elementor blocks. Articles pasted from Word kept breaking styles. 20+ plugins creating a security nightmare.", "context": "enterprise team", "use_case": "company websites", "switched_from": "", "story": "The CMS is dead. Long live the CMS"}, {"id": 761778784, "item_id": 47611174, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47611174", "by": "p0w3n3d", "date": "2026-04-02", "stance": "warn", "quote": "really this is sad the WP is so vulnerable just by the plugins installation", "excerpt": "I used to host a wordpress on my server for some people who configured it. However, when some bots got there, I was unable to keep them at bay. I upgraded WP's version, but the Wordpress had some vulnerable plugin, and I was unable to find out what path did the attack go. I only could find that the malicious files were uploaded into images/ directory and run from there. That's something I blame PHP for (and of course", "context": "", "use_case": "hosting sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "EmDash \u2013 a spiritual successor to WordPress that solves plugin security"}]}