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A comment on Ask HN: Why does WordPress dominate the market?.

Re:Ask HN: Why does WordPress dominate the market? by csixty4 on Tuesday June 24, 2014 @08:09AM (#7937243)
WordPress is where it is because the core team puts users first. They've taken on tons of technical debt in order to maintain backwards compatibility with themes & plugins. PHP 5.3 reached end-of-life a year ago, but WordPress continues to support 5.2 because so many shared hosting and un-maintained VPS servers use it. Even cleaning up some of the PHP3-style code in wp-admin needs to be weighed against the risk of breaking some five year old plugin.

From a UX standpoint, it's easy to use, install plugins, find themes, and get help. If you spend money on a commercial theme, you can be assured the platform is going to support it for years even if you don't have all the cool new features. It runs on PHP, from a $2/mo shared hosting account to WordPress VIP.

The community is great. WordCamps cover a variety of technical and non-technical topics. Most people are welcoming. It's just a great bunch.

Could you create a CMS with a cleaner codebase? Easily. And the people who make WordPress want to, too.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Ask HN: Why does WordPress dominate the market? by csixty4 on Tuesday June 24, 2014 @08:15AM (#7937265)
Ok. That was my WordPress cheerleader post. Now, here's the snark I edited out of that because it didn't fit the flow.

If you want people to adopt a different CMS, here are pain points I've heard repeatedly from users. Address all of these and you're golden:

* It should have perfect security. Vulnerabilities should be patched immediately, not the next day.

* There should constantly be new features to enhance my site.

* It should never need upgrades.

* It should do everything out of the box instead of needing plugins.

* It shouldn't be bloated. Keep the core code base small.

* It should be easy for me to do anything and everything from the admin interface.

* There shouldn't be a lot of options because it's overwhelming.

* 24/7 phone support should be included. Or, if I have to use a support forum, I should get an answer in 5 minutes.

* Everything should be free.

[ Parent | on HN ]