What are your most favourite WordPress alternatives?

ggmopa

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I avoid WordPress. I have a couple of clients running small shops or portfolios online. It’s simple enough to manage just using Vue or even plain Typescript in some cases.

I got a bigger client recently though. Just been doing homework before I start building and testing the site. Thing is they are really apprehensive about building their new site in anything other than WordPress. I have them enough reason to avoid WP so they’re considering alternatives after much convincing, but i’m wondering if there’s really anything out there that is a comprehensive and affordable ecommerce CMS that isn’t WP, Shopify or Magento. I’m looking at MedusaJS but wondering what all else anyone else might recommend.
 
Drupal can be great for ecommerece I done a few times.
 
I run prestashop.

It's fine. The text side of things for going in content first isn't the best mind. But it's slowly overcoming that.

I have been looking to swap platforms but I like what we have. I know the platform. Have our own build version and I own it, no monthly fee other than the server which is mine. Self hosted.
 
I'm using the poor man's clickfunnels - Systeme.

Will eventually graduate and grab Clickfunnels.

For me right now it doesn't matter all that much since I'm in the audience building stage.

Although a nice simple landing page with an email option and name would be nice.

Might get one or two loyal fans to optin already who knows.

But honestly I am liking the free plan of Systeme so far.

Might stay with them tbh.

Time will tell.
 
I use WordPress mostly. Not because it's flawless - but because I've made peace with its chaos.

The only platform I use or recommend outside of WP is Shopify. Cleaner backend, smoother UX for clients, and way less maintenance. If the business doesn't need deep customizations or weird SEO gymnastics, just push them to Shopify and sleep better at night.
 
Astro + Shopify API statically generated and hosted on Cloudflare Pages has been my go-to for clients that want and are willing to cover on-going development and management of an ecomm site. There are some starter templates out there but beyond simple boilerplate functionality there is some heavy upfront development work writing your own.

For most smaller clients (and as much as it pains me) I still just recommend Wordpress + WooCommerce. Short term it's faster to get up and running for them, and long term its easier to pass the whole project over to someone else to manage. As crappy as it is to have to setup/develop with, it's a far safer choice for your client should they need to find a different developer to handle it down the road as wordpress/woocommerce devs are a dime a dozen. There is a lot of work there stripping out all of the default WP garbage to get passing 100s on pagespeed, but it is doable with good caching and CDN configuration.

If the client is already apprehensive about going with something other than WP, I'd take heed and go with what they want... Pushing an alternative solution just to satisfy your own preferences will blow up in your face when dealing with them should the slightest thing go wrong (and often will).
 
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