A couple of days ago, WordPress 7.0 Beta 2 was released. A new major version of WordPress always gets my attention because I run a few different WordPress-based blogs, including this one. So naturally, I’m curious to see what the new version has to offer.
Here is a simple overview of what is new:
- Real-time collaboration
- “Notes” for individual blocks (like comments in a Word document)
- New Abilities API for AI
- The admin area is getting a new design
- New blocks for breadcrumbs, etc
- Better responsive editing for block-based content
You can find a more detailed write-up of the features here.
Unfortunately, the new release is making WordPress even more bloated than it already was with features I absolutely do not need. The only thing that might benefit me is the redesign for the admin area.
When I chose WordPress for this blog in 2007, it was a lean publication platform that focused on individual blogs: hence, the name. Over time, the focus has shifted from publishing to more of a full-fledged CMS with visual block editing and now, collaboration tools and AI.
Simple, individual bloggers like me have been entirely forgotten about and are being left in the dust. There haven’t been any new features or improvements that focus on what WordPress was originally supposed to be for many, many years.
I’ve written about my desire to replace WordPress several times in the past couple of years (for example, here, here and here), but have never actually gotten around to it. There have been many attempts made at writing a custom CMS tailored exactly to my needs. I’ve also attempted to create an application that just simply skips the CMS aspect altogether and uses a file-system based solution with Markdown files. I’ve gotten close to finishing both, but have never actually finished the transition. Primarily, that is because WordPress still works just well enough to keep me lazy.
I’ve also looked into alternatives like Ghost and ClassicPress which are both very good options. ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress that has been stripped of its bloat and focuses on blogging much like what WordPress was originally intended to be — which is actually exactly what I’m looking for. Ghost is an entirely different approach to blogging and its entire focus is on publication — also exactly what I need.
When I first launched my now-defunct horror blog, Haunting Alex, I originally wanted to use Ghost. Not only was the name appropriate, but I thought it would be great to try it. However, Ghost’s system requirements are pretty strict in that it assumes you have nginx and MySQL 8 instead of Apache and MariaDB which is my current setup. I’ve seen that it might work with Apache and MariaDB, but I like stability and not “might work” since that tends to break with updates. So, I abandoned it and went back to WordPress.
At the time, I didn’t know about ClassicPress yet, unfortunately, and I probably would have tried that instead. Next time, I will definitely give it a shot though. I may even attempt to move one of my existing blogs to it since they offer a WordPress plugin that will convert the WordPress instance to a ClassicPress instance without any hassle. That is the advantage of being a fork of WordPress, I suppose.
In any case though, enough rambling from me. WordPress is heading in a direction that is divergent from what I require and if I can overcome the laziness-inducing “it still works just well enough,” I think I will move on to another platform that is more tailored to my needs, whether that is a custom solution or not.
