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WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

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Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#101

Post by thaumaturgy »

lazyant wrote: post #53
Dachande663 wrote: post #7

WordPress is like the Kalashnikov of the web. You can use it for pretty much anything, run it anywhere, do god knows what to it and it'll still happy hum along (albeit behind a very big varnish cache). A few of our clients have millions of pageviews running off of a couple t2.small instances and the single biggest factor for them is the UI and the security of knowing they're not tied into a bespoke platform.

If everything is cached, sure, serving static content is cheap. The comparison with a solid machine I find it funny, a bad update in a plug-in can render your site useless for a while and WP's security record is abysmal.

Wordpress has improved a lot since version 3, and most of the vulnerabilities you see for it now require some kind of privilege escalation or don't really give the attacker a whole lot to work with (http://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-2337/...). And Wordpress handles updates remarkably well, including automatically installing security updates in the background.

I previously hated Wordpress because it was a source of so much trouble on the web, but now I sort of grudgingly appreciate it. I still don't enjoy having to work with it on occasion for clients, but it doesn't make me grind my teeth anymore.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#102

Post by thaumaturgy »

picozeta wrote: post #32
CM30 wrote: post #16

It's not that surprising to be honest. WordPress' success comes down to the following: 1. It was simple to use in an era where CMS meant 'large, complicated system that was tailored towards technies rather than the general population'. It didn't have a ton of features, but it was easy to use for the average blogger wanting to write posts without worrying about all the setup and coding and what not. 2. You could prett…

I agree with your points, but always wonder why shared hosting is often PHP/MySQL only. E.g. if you are using Python, say Django or Flask, and want to outsource your devops (i.e. shared hosting) you do not have many options. Of course, there is pythonanywhere or you might want to use PAAS like Heroku, but I find it interesting non the less. Is it so much more work for shared hosting providers to provide Python?

I provide shared hosting for some clients.

The simple answer is that the last time I looked I couldn't find good documentation for getting Python (and Ruby) support working side-by-side with a modern LAMP stack. Most Python (and Ruby) hosting-related documentation assumed nginx, which, while I like it otherwise, still lacked good support for .htaccess files, which are a must-have when providing hosting for people using things like Wordpress and Joomla and Drupal. The documentation that I could find for Apache environments was way, way behind the best practices for a PHP+Apache environment and some of the recommendations were orthogonal to my current environment.

I still would like to provide a hosting environment that can handle a mix of PHP and Python and Ruby, but it's going to be fiddly and involve a lot of trial-and-error and I haven't been able to justify the time sink yet.

Getting suexec + event-mpm + fcgid + PHP opcode caching has been enough of a headache as it is.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#103

Post by mschuster91 »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #60
mschuster91 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be other technical solutions that are better from a technology POV. What WP did right is to choose a platform supported EVERYWHERE (PHP, and not Ruby, Java or other crap only supported by few hosters), with a shitload of developers (again, the massive advantage of PHP), and packed the installation process in a way everyone from an 8-year old school kid to a 70-year old grandpa can handle (and literally, I h…

> What WP did right is to choose a platform supported EVERYWHERE When WP was created, their options were PHP or Perl. PHP was by far the hottest thing back then, so what they actually did was use the hot tech of the day and made it work. The reason PHP is supported everywhere is for the same reason; back then it was PHP or Perl via CGI. Python was added later and was also supported EVERYWHERE.

> Python was added later and was also supported EVERYWHERE.

Germanys big hosting player Strato doesn't offer Python in its cheap plans, Hosteurope according to their FAQ is stuck at python 2.6.

Granted, a German-centered POV, but still. Python support is far from mainstream.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#104

Post by ufmace »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #85

I must admit ignorance here. I've installed WP a couple of times but never went live with it or did anything past poking around. Here's my hangup: I can't understand why one would start with a blogging platform, pound at it with various plugins and transform it into, say, a product/ecommerce website. It feels like starting with a shovel when you need a pick (or some other more applicable analogy). That's the part I d…

I haven't used Wordpress much, but I am working on an Orchard site at my current job. It's a CMS kinda like Wordpress, but built on C#/ASP.NET. Our dev team is mostly working on a dozen or so custom-coded account management pages in a separate module, but most of the content is marketing material as pages built in the Orchard management screens, kind of like blog posts, but arranged like a conventional website.

The developers aren't terribly enthusiastic about working with those Orchard pages, since they're tough to collaborate on and version control. But the Marketing people seem to like it just fine, probably because conventional web site building tools, like writing HTML and CSS and managing folders of content with source control tools, is too complex and error-prone for them, and the site UI is worlds better than any other technique they might be willing to use. I'm guessing Wordpress works in a similar way.

Now that I think about it, I had always idly wondered whatever happened to those desktop GUI web page building tools, like Frontpage and Dreamweaver and such. They may still be around, but don't seem to have any mindshare. Maybe it's because the people who were using them put up Wordpress sites instead and are building their pages in the Wordpress UI.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#105

Post by vatotemking »

CM30 wrote: post #16

It's not that surprising to be honest. WordPress' success comes down to the following: 1. It was simple to use in an era where CMS meant 'large, complicated system that was tailored towards technies rather than the general population'. It didn't have a ton of features, but it was easy to use for the average blogger wanting to write posts without worrying about all the setup and coding and what not. 2. You could prett…

You forgot backwards compatibility. For #3, the large ecosystem didnt grew overnight, it was an accumulation of themes, plugins, and dev hours throughout the years. It was made possible by WP's backwards compatibility.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#106

Post by narrowrail »

robtaylor wrote: post #100
jjoe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's roughly $90/mo for 1m+ pvs/mo (includes management). With wp-super-cache you're still hitting PHP/MySQL (although not as heavily if you're pulling everything cold). Whereas with Varnish you're getting hot pages off RAM and on you go.

able to email me company url / more info? email in profile

They are talking about Varnish:

https://www.varnish-cache.org

Or, you can start with this to get the general idea first:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varnish_software

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#107

Post by rebootthesystem »

SHIT_TALKER wrote: post #99
rebootthesystem wrote: post #85

I must admit ignorance here. I've installed WP a couple of times but never went live with it or did anything past poking around. Here's my hangup: I can't understand why one would start with a blogging platform, pound at it with various plugins and transform it into, say, a product/ecommerce website. It feels like starting with a shovel when you need a pick (or some other more applicable analogy). That's the part I d…

On the funny end of the scale, I've seen five page static websites with a landing page, a few info pages and a form done with WP. Unbelievable. Are developers that lazy today that they throw WP at everything? Or is it easier at that level to charge X to do a WP site rather than charging the same for straight-up PHP/HTML/JS? When the client says they want to be able to update site content themselves.... okay, here's y…

Yeah, that's probably the scenario with the least friction.

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#109

Post by velmu »

Dachande663 wrote: post #7

WordPress is like the Kalashnikov of the web. You can use it for pretty much anything, run it anywhere, do god knows what to it and it'll still happy hum along (albeit behind a very big varnish cache). A few of our clients have millions of pageviews running off of a couple t2.small instances and the single biggest factor for them is the UI and the security of knowing they're not tied into a bespoke platform.

Yup, WordPress keeps on chugging along. And for most publishing needs it's good enough, regardless of what's inside: https://janit.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/does-the-technical-de...

Re: WordPress now runs a quarter of the web

#110

Post by jjoe »

robtaylor wrote: post #100
jjoe wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's roughly $90/mo for 1m+ pvs/mo (includes management). With wp-super-cache you're still hitting PHP/MySQL (although not as heavily if you're pulling everything cold). Whereas with Varnish you're getting hot pages off RAM and on you go.

able to email me company url / more info? email in profile

Your email isn't visible in your profile. But mine is. Email me anytime.
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