Alternatives to Wordpress

September 29, 2024 10:45 AM

Given the shitty behavior of Matt, I want to move my blog off of wordpress.com.

I was searching for alternatives, but I'm confused. I currently pay about $10 a month and would like to keep it in that range. I'm not a huge fan of self hosting (been there, done that) but I'm open to it.

I believe he's involved in Tumblr, so I want to stay away from there too.

What should I be looking at? Drupal, Joomla?

posted by kathrynm to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

I'm sure there's other options, and other people. may have better informed advice, but I'd suggest Ghost:

• Also a longterm developed & supported option with a robust 3rd party plugin ecosystem
• The question of importing Wordpress has been asked enough to generate (possibly) useful guides and Q&A. A quick search:
  • A troubleshooting thread on Ghost's forum; and
  • A reddit discussion about options to migrate without plugins


• both hosted (ex Ghost.org) and preconfigured self hosted (ex Digitalocean) options

I think one of the reasons for choosing an option like this one, when coming from Wordpress, is that they're both a "platform" and (in theory) you're not tied to a provider should a similar situation present itself in the future.
posted by mce at 11:53 AM on September 29

Pair.com offers managed hosting at different tiers of service if you want to save your Wordpress setup but not use Matt.
posted by JoeZydeco at 1:26 PM on September 29

I'm a fan of BlueHost.com myself. They offer managed WordPress hosting. I've used them off and on over the last twenty years, so they definitely have staying power. They've always been cheap, responsive, and easy to use.

Their WordPress plans seem to range from like $3 a month up to $13 or so.
posted by kbanas at 2:54 PM on September 29

Jumping in to say that Drupal and Joomla are both overpowered with pretty challenging setup for a personal blog. (If you are going to use one of them go with Drupal; Joomla is in decline.) If you are looking for managed blogging software, Ghost may be your best bet.
posted by rednikki at 7:46 PM on September 29

My spouse has been using flywheel for wordpress hosting her consulting blog for years and I think it's been smooth going. (however, the data transfer limits are very modest especially in the low end plans)

It's not for the faint of heart, because ultimately you end up administering a whole Linux system including a database & web server, but I have to mention it: with digitalocean (referral link) you can spin up a machine preinstalled with Ubuntu and WordPress. The same is probably true of other hosting providers, but this is the one I know.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 6:11 AM on September 30

Assuming you're not doing anything too complicated with the site, I've enjoyed using blot for a few random side projects. Super simple - create a file (text/image/whatever) in a Dropbox/Google Drive/Github, and it automagically creates a new post for you.
posted by Doktor at 8:30 AM on September 30

Although it has been a long time since I used them, pair.com was always excellent.
posted by bz at 1:49 PM on October 1