WordPress vs. ClassicPress comparison
[Continuously updated]
The fork of WordPress to ClassicPress raised the obvious question: which software to choose for your website?
Both systems are capable, both have dedicated followers and both have their strengths and weaknesses. To help you choose one, here is a head-to-head comparison of pros and cons, with situations when ClassicPress fits better or when WordPress should be your choice.
So, here it is, the full-length WordPress vs. ClassicPress review.
WordPress
WordPress is a fork from the b2/cafelog blogging software.
It was started in 2003 as a blogging platform and has over the years evolved into a powerful Content Management Software, powering about half of the web.
The decision to open API and let users develop themes and plugins and maintain huge repositories for them made WordPress the most beloved web platform.
But on December 6, 2018 (yes, a couple of weeks before Christmas), WordPress 5.0 was launched.
It is better not to say that “WordPress 5.0″ was launched”, but rather “WordPress was forked again”, this time to Gutenberg. Because Gutenberg is a completely different direction of the software, which changed WordPress so significantly that we can call it the fork of WordPress to Gutenberg.
Not all users liked this breaking change, especially just before Christmas.
Wordpress rolled out a fundamental change to the mental model of how to create content. Almost no change management. One tiny popup.
My 71yr old ‘web master’ dad went from feeling like a tech champion to feeling like an idiot overnight.
We web ppl still have a lot to learn…
Leisa Reichelt (@leisa) December 20, 2018
Gutenberg
Gutenberg is a page builder and a new editor that focuses on page building instead of text:
Gutenberg will definitely be a whole-page builder, that’s the entire point of phase 2. All of the infrastructure is built to support that, so it will happen much faster than phase 1.
Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt) September 6, 2018
From the very beginning, the focus of Gutenberg switched from content management to rich media:
The editor will endeavour to create a new page and post building experience that makes writing rich posts effortless, and has “blocks” to make it easy what today might take shortcodes, custom HTML, or “mystery meat” embed discovery.
Matt Mullenweg, 2017.
To make adding rich content to WordPress “simple and enjoyable”, something should be sacrificed. In Gutenberg, the sacrifice falls on the writing of long, longer than several Twitter tweets, texts. It can be done but it is not as distraction-free as it was with the familiar TinyMCE editor and has an awkward workflow.
Because we write long-form content. I write directly in WordPress, then edit, rearrange, decide where to add images, videos, infographics AFTER the content it written and edited.
Try doing that in blocks. Or editing existing content – or finding the words you want to change.
Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) May 3, 2022
And Gutenberg made the editing of those texts much worse:
I did. WP created an editor that makes writing long-form content miserable and editing it worse.
Even Gutenberg fans agree that it takes longer to put content into it than Classic Editor. Time is too valuable to waste.
And the solution is leave WP and go to @GetClassicPress
Gail Gardner (@GrowMap) May 8, 2022
WordPress started to lose market share
The problems with Gutenberg do not stop here. It fails not only in content writing experience but also in creating a site builder too.
Clumsy and slow. I’ve been using it for a few years. Different blocks have different problems. For example, HTML block erases code every time you edit (old unsolved problem), etc. #vcbuzz
Ann Smarty (@seosmarty) May 3, 2022
Developers consider Gutenberg as beta:
I don’t do much WP dev anymore, but after needing multiple articles and a YouTube tutorial for me to understand the new Navigation block, I knew WP was in serious trouble.
That 5.9 pushed out full site editing as the only option (that I can tell) while it’s a beta is insane.
Alexis – now in 4K ????️⚧️???????????????? (@TransCinderella) May 11, 2022
Even Matt Mullenweg is not happy with the performance of the page builder:
The owner of WordPress complaining (to his volunteers) that a block theme takes too long and they should just update the custom HTML in their current theme… Welcome to the last five years of block editing @photomatt!https://t.co/mI4zKBnO6T
— Brian Coords (@briancoords) August 11, 2022
These problems with Gutenberg led to the loss of market share for the first time in history.
No surprise either. WP has turned itself into a direct competitor of DIY offerings like Wix, Webflow & Squarespace.
The lifeblood of WP was developers. It was the dev community that made WP the success it is. When you become a DIY product, you greatly cut the opportunity for devsChris Howard {Autistic. ADHD. Normal. Differently} (@chrishoward) May 11, 2022
With WordPress 5.0, and, especially, with WP 5.8, WordPress shifted focus from content management to site building. It’s not a CMS (Content Management Software) anymore, it’s a site builder.
Just giving Gutenberg a try is not enough, some annoyances can be discovered only after longer usage, especially, after writing longer texts. On the other hand, the ability to edit appearance on the fly can be appealing to some users too.
All these annoyances led to the conclusion that Gutenberg shouldn’t be incorporated into WordPress core at all:
I think Full Site Editing, and the Block Editor back in 2018, were rushed, half-baked, and should have been their own products
Don’t get me wrong. Many people do like working with the Gutenberg page builder and that’s perfectly fine. However, a lot of people have found it awkward and difficult to get used to. These inconveniences plus some other issues led to the birth of ClassicPress.
ClassicPress
ClassicPress is a continuation of WordPress as a Content Management Software. It’s a sequel to WordPress version 4.9, the last WordPress without Gutenberg page builder. Started in 2018, the 1.0 version was released in February 2019.
Despite its birth because of the dissatisfaction with how the new Gutenberg editor was migrated from plugin to WordPress core, soon it focused on other WordPress weak points and attempted to fix them.
A lot of people don’t understand the real reason WordPress was forked.
People say it was forked “because Gutenberg” when, in actuality, that was merely the straw that broke the camel’s back, as they say. It was a long string of things: customizer, capital_p_dangit, Gutenberg, adversarial staffers, and more…
With Gutenberg, there was unprecedented community backlash (like never before seen in the OS world, ever,) and because it was predominantly minimized, dismissed, or ignored, – and the fact that WordPress didn’t care about the millions of dollars it would cost the community to keep up, repair damage, retrain clients, etc – It laid bare the fact that WordPress is community-supported, but, not community-based or with community interests at heart.
With these revelations, people just finally said “no more” and ClassicPress was born.
John Alarcon, WordPress/ClassicPress developer.
The developers’ attitude looks promising. What they are doing and planning to do, is like a Pro version of WordPress: more freedom, more options to strip unnecessary (and, in some cases – like XML-PRC – potentially dangerous) modules, better stability of the whole system without breaking changes every few months.
This comes with its own price, of course. ClassicPress lacks Gutenberg page builder. For some folks it is a huge plus, for some – showstopping weakness.
Ownership
Both – WordPress page builder and ClassicPress content management system are open-source software, governed by non-profit organisations, which also keep the rights of trademarks.
But here their similarities end.
ClassicPress is governed by petitions. This approach puts decision-making in the hands of an active community. No corporate agenda are presented in the decision-making process.
WordPress is different. Despite de jure WordPress being governed by WordPress Foundation, de facto all important decisions are made by “benevolent dictator” Matt Mullenweg, who founded WordPress Foundation and Automattic – the company behind WordPress. And as many found, some decisions are made in favor of Automattic, not WordPress:
This sets a troubling precedence, paving the way for every plugin to add similar upsells and “recommendations”, making the #WordPress Add New Plugin page a chaotic mess. If we want these types of recommendations, they need their own dedicated interface. https://t.co/oeCTeATu8i
— Morten @ home (@mor10) April 2, 2019
What to choose – WordPress or ClassicPress?
Fairer to say, that the new WordPress with Gutenberg is the new software, forked from WordPress and ClassicPress is the original WordPress, focused on leaner code, more predictable behavior, and usual user experience. The irony is that the old name is the new software and the new name is the old, classic Content Management Software.
WordPress is heading to its own roots – to the blogging software, instead of a content management system. Focusing on page building, a no-coding approach is appealing to inexperienced bloggers but often is alien to a serious developer.
Like everything in our life, there is no best solution for all cases. What fits best for you? You should decide. And here we collected pros and cons for easier decision-making.
Pros of Gutenberg/WordPress
- The most popular blogging platform in the world. About half of all websites are created with WordPress.
- The biggest blogging platform in the world. Yes, it’s the same, as #1, but the difference is so big that it’s worth mentioning twice.
- Really huge community. Users, developers, and everything in between.
- Every page and every post can be customized and built differently.
Cons of Gutenberg/WordPress
- Gutenberg adds a huge clutter and bad coding practices in the HTML output in the form of HTML comments. If you used to edit in this mode, it is much harder now.
- Every user with editor privileges turns into a site builder. Potentially it means a design nightmare.
- Focus on page building, instead of text writing.
- Gutenberg forces more mouse clicks during the creation of an ordinary post.
- Gutenberg downgraded accessibility, compared with the classic TinyMCE editor.
- WordPress becomes the background system for running Gutenberg.
- WordPress owner didn’t listen to the community.
Pros of ClassicPress
- Lack of Gutenberg page builder.
- At last, someone has taken care of clearing the WordPress code.
- After clearing the core, CassicPress is safer by design.
- Faster. By a quite wide margin.
- No mess in the HTML code.
- Use of git.
- Better accessibility, especially after upgrading to TinyMCE v5.
- Semantic versioning & other practices of good coding standards.
- Steered by the community, not by an individual. Decisions are made by the community by voting, not by an individual’s own agenda or corporate self-interest.
Cons of ClassicPress
- Lack of Gutenberg pagebuilder.
- Still a very small developer community.
- Still waiting for momentum to take off and achieve at least one-tenth of the WordPress share.
- An unknown situation with plugins: what share of WordPress plugins will support ClassicPress in the future?
- Outdated plugins can be vulnerable without your awareness.
- The most popular WordPress plugins will not support ClassicPress.
ClassicPress: Faster than WordPress?
In theory, because of less bloat and leaner code, ClassicPress should be faster than WordPress. Is it true?
We’re getting reports that #ClassicPress is up to 50% faster than #WordPress5 according to: gtmetrix.com tests. If you haven’t switched some of your sites yet, please run a before and after test and let us know the results!
— ClassicPress (@GetClassicPress) December 10, 2018
John Alarcon performed a detailed head-to-head WordPress vs. ClassicPress speed comparison and found this is the case.
Another comparison reported that ClassicPress uses 13% less memory and loads 29% faster when editing a post.
And the most comprehensive report was posted by Beda Schmid on tukutoi.com. Yes, the ClassicPress is faster in every aspect, and by a quite wide margin.
ClassicPress will improve performance even more with version 2, by adding the ability to disable not used features. At the same time, we should expect a further downgrade in WordPress performance because more Gutenberg code will be added to the whole site.
ClassicPress and outdated plugins
If a plugin officially requires WP 5, and you run it on the ClassicPress website, it will not push any notifications about updates. It means that if a vulnerability in a plugin is found and the security patch is issued, you will not be notified about it. If you continue to use this plugin on your website, you can be hacked.
This extremely dangerous situation can be resolved by constantly checking your plugins in vulnerability databases like WPScan‘s vulnerable plugins database or with Patchstack and immediately deactivating and finding an alternative if plugin vulnerability occurs.
You can read and join a discussion about this issue on the ClassicPress forums.
WordPress & ClassicPress for Different Purposes
So, which is better for you? It depends.
If you want to have the usual, time-tested experience – choose ClassicPress.
On the other hand, if you want to go with the bigger crowd and have a new and fashionable way to create websites – go with WordPress.
If your focus is on creating text, especially long text, it is better to use ClassicPress because of the familiar & productivity-oriented TinyMCE editor.
If your focus is on building every post full of different media (pictures, audio, video), with a different look – WordPress with Gutenberg page builder suits your need better.
If you want to focus on distraction-free writing, not on gaming with LEGO blocks, you should choose ClassicPress.
If you want to focus on new features, not on writing boring long articles, you should choose WordPress with Gutenberg.
If you want a huge community – go with WordPress.
If you want democratic and transparent leadership – go with CassicPress.
If you want to go with the majority – go with WordPress.
If you want to go with good coding practices – go with ClassicPress.
Want fast development and more new features? Definitely WordPress.
Concerned about speed and security? Definitely ClassicPress.
Can’t live without the best plugin of all time – Hello, Dolly? Of course, stay with WordPress.
Accessibility is important to you? No doubt, ClassicPress because TinyMCE supports it.
Scared that a next core update can break your site? Definitely go with ClassicPress.
Didn’t want to give to the editorial staff too much design control? Choose ClassicPress.
If you are an adventurous person and hate boring predictability – definitely WordPress.
If you want stability and familiarity – definitely ClassicPress.
It’s up to you to choose. Don’t worry, we support both platforms.
Please, express your opinion
Please, help others to choose between the two. Twitter is the best place to express your opinion. Or use any other social media platform you are on. Or just tweet what we missed.
We will update this article to express the latest state of WordPress vs. ClassicPress.
WordPress vs. ClassicPress: the most comprehensive guide. Pros, cons and everything in between. Continuously updated. Please, tweet this
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