Hello community,

I am looking for a system to replace wordpress.

My goal is to build a webpage with a simple start page, an ‘about me’ and an impressum, so nothing special, but hopefully good looking.

I only use open source software, FOSS whenever possible. I have a rough understanding of some HTML, CSS, PHP, but I am happy if my future webpage doesn’t rely too heavy on my knowlege of those languages.

Wordpress feels very over the top and not many things work out of the box - you have to pay for premium products if you want a functional page, that doesn’t look exactly like twenty twenty-two. I wanted to move my wordpress site from one host to another host… Not easy, unless you pay for a plugin of course.

Now I found ModX, a CMS which looks like it is much less clunky, has more free ‘plugins’ and it looks quite intuitive with it’s folder structure.

My questions:

  • Has anyone used both CMS and can compare them based on their personal experience?
  • What CMS or other way do you prefer to build your simple webpage (FOSS only version)?

Edit: Thank you all for great recommendations and for sharing your experience! I learned: A full CMS is overkill for my usecase. Other, more suitable options, are:

  • Flat-file CMS (Grav, Automad,…)
  • static-file-generators (Hugo,…)
  • Emacs-org-html-export (…)
  • Build from scratch with html and css
  • sab@kbin.social
    3·
    10 months ago

    I’m currently experimenting with Seppo for my website, which is… not ready yet. So maybe not the greatest suggestion. But development is happening fast, and I like it for a couple of reasons.

    1. It’s incredibly easy to install. Just upload a file, set permissions, and open it in the browser. I’m somewhat incompetent, so I appreciate that even though deploying WordPress is obviously not very difficult either.
    2. Content is stored in basic XML files, making it easy to access with just basic PHP and an XSLT stylesheet. Basically it easy to incorporate posts into your site however you want it.
    3. It federates with ActivityPub, so people can follow your blog directly and get the content directly into their feeds.
    4. It’s lightweight - very little bullshit.

    Basic functionality such as editing and deleting posts does not work yet, so it’s absolutely not ready for primetime. But it’s a project worth following, especially for those of us with an interest in the social web.

    Edit: I guess this would be more if you wanted to create a basic website yourself, and add a tool for content management to it. I read the post a bit too quickly - if you’re not interested in writing some code there are much better options to go for out there. Seppo I think is nice for those who actively want to tinker a bit. :)