I have been using WordPress for a while with my personal blog, JPtacek.com. I have been a big fan and have written up many posts about setting up WordPress using the awesomeness of Azure websites. However, the time to move on has come upon to a new blogging platform. Sylvester ByeBye WordPress logo So the question is why... Well here is my reasoning

  • A CMS does a great many things, but ultimately they are for people to be able to host websites and publish content. And most CMSes are for people who do not want to learn about things like HTML. However, with a developer background I kept running into things I could easily do in HTML, but were near impossible within WordPress
  • Azure is great, however I still pay for Azure. I am responsible for CPU and bandwidth. Since WordPress is a platform, every page requests is essentially run through a CPU, where the WordPress blackbox does its magic, queries a database and spits out HTML. This is a cost. (To be honest, it is not a BIG cost)
  • It always felt a bit goofy to have simple web pages hosted in a back end database. Everything starts as a document or HTML, then gets thrown into a database. I need to be responsible for backing up the database and being a good admin type person. I would rather just have my one true source be HTML that I can save in Dropbox or SkyDrive
  • PHP is not my thing. I am always up for learning something new, but PHP is NOT something I that is on the learn something new list.
  • Update, update, update. Since WordPress is a platform, hackers tend to get bored and are always looking to hack into it. You constantly need to be aware of keeping your software and plugins up to date if you are hosting your own WordPress environment. This is not an issue if you are hosting at WordPress.com, but I am not, on account of the awesomeness of Azure Websites
  • Truthfully, probably the biggest reason is JavaScript. Doing web front end things with WordPress is really not a pleasant experience. I have found myself resorting to embedding JSFiddles into my pages to show functionality that is plain easy to do on other platforms.

So what am I looking for?

  • More web, please. I want to be able to have a blog engine that supports HTML and JavaScript, rather than make me miserable
  • Speedy please
  • Reduce hosting costs, please
  • Help me learn something new, please

I have been spending time thinking about this. I believe I have an answer. Any suggestions from you oh mighty Internet?