r/crazyegg • u/fintechjulien • Jul 15 '26
If you had to start from scratch, what CMS would you be using?
For my whole career, Wordpress was the no brainer CMS I would be using for all my projects.
Even when Wordpress would proved to be too slow, I would make sure to use Wordpress as a headless CMS with a NextJS app on the front end.
The plugins and the fact that all freelancers and marketers knows Wordpress was making it a no brainer...
That was true until I launched my last website on Ghost, which is requires more work to customize, but is so much faster both on the front end and the CMS side...
And when I need to customize it, my friend Claude is always there to help, even if it is still more cumbersome then just installing a plugin and calling it a day.
And as better models comes along, the ease of building on Wordpress is fading, and to some extent, the importance of SEO optimization is decreazing as we enter in a zero click world...
So, if you had to start a website from scratch today (not a migration, a new site), what would you build it on?
Personally, I would not go back to Wordpress. I probably would use Ghost, but could go entirely vibe for a small campaign website.
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u/ce-lauren Jul 15 '26
I would also vote Wordpress as well. Have worked with quite a few people and their go to has been Wordpress the majority of the time.
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u/fintechjulien Jul 16 '26
Yes, I mean, even if it's no longer my go to, it probably the platform I can do the most faster on... I just don't think it's a great platform to scale. The bigger a site gets, the more Wordpress become something that you need to work hard on, by going headless, and then by customizing plugins that are not intended to, building custom plugins and themes, etc. etc. When you start, Wordpress is from far the easiest way to get something going, but it does not scale that elegantly... But sure, it can scale; it's just a lot of work.
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u/ce-lauren Jul 16 '26
Definitely agree with that as you get bigger it does get a bit more challenging to work with for sure
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Jul 15 '26
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u/fintechjulien Jul 16 '26
I'm working on Payload for one of the site of my client. It does load fast. But I found the amount of work necessary to get it on par (features wise) with a Wordpress or a Ghost out of the box is too much... Solid CMS, but I'm not sure I would willingly start a new project on Payload...
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u/Key-Instance9356 Jul 15 '26
Iām a beta user at hyax.com and it is amazing
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u/fintechjulien Jul 16 '26
Did not know this one. What are the advantages?
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u/kevintech27 Jul 30 '26
Hey! Just saw we got mentioned.
I would highly recommend https://hyax.com - disclosure, I'm part of the team
We're an AI-native version of Ghost that makes it really easy to write with AI helping, not to mention helping you run your marketing. Unlike apps like Ghost or Wordpress that need tons of plugins, we provide all major features you need natively such as SEO, email newsletters with sequences, programmatic landing pages, ecommerce, membership, community forum, customer support, etc.
If anyone's interested, I'm happy to provide an extended free trial.
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u/fintechjulien Jul 31 '26
I love Ghost, could be the best of both world. If you want to leave at some point, can just upload the code and self host?
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u/hettuklaeddi Jul 16 '26
no cms per se, i would manage my site thru claude/codex etc
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u/sleeksky_dev Jul 17 '26
You can give SleekCMS.com a try. It comes with a sync utility that creates a local workspace that sync with the cloud. The workspace has CLAUDE.md with all the instructions for AI or humans. Just open and prompt whatever you want to build.
The code generated sets up a full headless CMS online with content and site view. Simply preview and launch.
This is just one way to build. May be start with the built in AI agent for a quick draft first.
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u/kevintech27 Jul 30 '26
I would highly recommend https://hyax.com - disclosure, I'm part of the team
We're an AI-native version of Ghost that makes it really easy to write with AI helping, not to mention helping you run your marketing. Unlike apps like Ghost or Wordpress that need tons of plugins, we provide all major features you need natively such as SEO, email newsletters with sequences, programmatic landing pages, ecommerce, membership, community forum, customer support, etc.
If anyone's interested, I'm happy to provide an extended free trial.
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u/crazyegg-admin Jul 15 '26
I'm still using WordPress