> The instructions assume you have a whole PHP dev environment setup-- very frustrating, after some time googling the various errors I kept hitting I just quit.

Sorry you had trouble. Craft definitely has stricter requirements than WP. v4 requires PHP 8, a handful of PHP extensions, and MySQL 5.7.8+/MariaDB 10.2.7+/PostgreSQL 10.0+.

Most modern local dev environments will have everything it needs – DDEV (https://ddev.com/), Lando (https://lando.dev/), our own Craft Nitro (https://getnitro.sh/), even MAMP, etc. –, but I realize these come with a learning curve. We do our best to ease you into it without making too many assumptions in our tutorial, so you might want to try giving it another go with that: https://craftcms.com/docs/getting-started-tutorial/

If you’re a Mac user, you’re going to need to start moving in this direction even to get WordPress running, as built-in PHP support has been deprecated and Apple plans to stop shipping it in future versions of macOS.

> This has been my issue with most Wordpress alternatives-- they assume you are a professional PHP developer, rather than someone who just wants to try a CMS

No argument there. WP is built for the masses; Craft is a developer tool. It doesn’t assume PHP knowledge (the built-in templating system is powered by Twig), but you will need a strong understanding of web standards and basic logical concepts. Or you can get your content out using the built-in GraphQL API, to hook it into a decoupled front-end like Next.js or Gatsby.

I'm not trying to sound harsh, but in that case, Craft CMS is probably not the right Wordpress alternative for you. Craft's philosophy is to give you the tool you need and make no assumptions about how you want to build your site. That means, there are no themes nor sites or blog posts by default. You have to set up your site's structure, the content fields yourself and then write the templates using TWIG. This is a CMS to be setup by developers.

> The instructions assume you have a whole PHP dev environment setup

How else would you expect to run a PHP-based application? WordPress also requires a PHP environment and database.

I wouldn't argue against Craft being more difficult to install than WordPress but I also wouldn't describe it as difficult (I'm a FE dev, no PHP wizard).

And I don't recall Craft every being marketed as a WordPress alternative - it's always been a "CMS for developers" (I think this may have been a tagline on their homepage at one point).

dev environment is the key word I assume. Wordpress is "upload to PHP-enabled webspace and run", many more modern things expect that you install them using composer etc pp and then deploy from there. (no clue if that's true of Craft or not, never used it)

Locally, if you use something like Valet or Craft’s own Nitro tool, it’s relatively painless.

You do need to embrace Composer, though, which is kind of a key element to how it works/is managed.

There are also some Craft-specific hosts, like Fortrabbit (disclosure: Fortrabbit user) that can take the guesswork out of managing Craft pushes.