We need a website... like, yesterday

March 2, 2020 12:13 PM

Dear Mefites, The organization I work for, a small-ish group of researchers and support staff, is having a website crisis. We need a new website fast, and there is limited local expertise available to us. Help me find resources and wrap my head around our options.

Our current website runs locally and is an out-dated Drupal 7 site resting on a very shaky backend, all of which (?) has begun to crash. The local IT/website person who used to keep things running and theme some of the content is out on leave, nobody knows for how long. The task of spearheading the build of a new website to replace this old site has fallen to me, and the situation is critical because we have a proposal review beginning in a couple weeks. I'm a scientist and a data manager for the group, not a website developer, so all I really can do right now is add content to the current Drupal site and maintain some of the Javascript apps that are iframed in. So, I am woefully underprepared for this task, but I guess I'm more prepared than most people here.

I don't think starting a new Drupal 7 website on the same backend is a maintainable option. We have servers and storage available and I think I can get an associated IT person to create a new virtual machine running Ubuntu for us. I know Linux fine, can install packages, configure software, and do most other admin things. I assume we will also need a "backend" database, web server, and CMS running on the virtual machine. We have a little local Drupal expertise, so if we build the system locally we would probably keep that as the CMS.

Our requirements for the website are fairly basic right now - we need to provide some static content (who we are, project descriptions, personnel pages, etc.) and the ability to run the javascript apps (a data catalog and bibliography) - but it would be nice if what we build now could scale up in the future. So I guess my questions are, once we have a virtual server running... then what?

Is there any kind of out-of-the box "backend" - web server/database/CMS system - we can deploy fast?

Could anyone recommend a good step by step guide for how to do this?

Or, should we just move the website elsewhere. I know the long-term plan for our research group (and partner organizations) is to maintain some kind of local IT/website shop, I just don't know how long it will take things to stabilize. Should we farm this out to a hosting company? Any recommendations on that?

posted by Eriogonum to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

Wordpress is super easy to deploy on a LAMP server, takes maybe 10 minutes. It also has a whole lot of plugins and other support. Having your own plugins is probably the more complicated part of it, depending on what the backend needs; if you can run and maintain your own linux server, that gives you the most flexibility versus a hosted environment.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:17 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

I see you maybe are more interested in the "backend" -- Ubuntu comes with, or makes it easy to add in, Apache and MySQL, your IT will likely enable it when they install the server, you shouldn't need to install it as part of the CMS install. Apache and MySQL are pretty much the back-end for every web CMS system out there.

You may just be able to migrate your existing Drupal, what's 'shaky' about its current location? Is it lost at this point?
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:24 PM on March 2, 2020

IMO, you'll struggle less and be frustrated less if you move from Drupal to WordPress. As AzraelBrown says, you can get it up and running in a few minutes. You'll then have to fill it with content and layout, but I think without being a "Drupal-ly" person, WP is the better option.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:29 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Keep in mind that wordpress, while easy to deploy, is almost as easy to hack, especially if not maintained by someone who knows what they're doing, especially-especially if you use plugins.
I've had many clients call me up because their WP sites have been hacked, and I try to help them out while gently recommending they change to some other CMS.
I don't know if I'd suggest using wordpress for anything mission critical if you don't have a knowledgeable expert on hand. Ditto for Drupal and Joomla.
If your apps are JavaScript based, could you get by with static files? That would be much safer and probably faster. There are static-website generators that let you create whole websites from some configuration and content files.
posted by signal at 12:35 PM on March 2, 2020 [4 favorites]

Couple ideas - you might be able to get away with a static site generator hosted on Github pages for the content - Github uses Jekyll with tons of documentation as their first suggestion, but I think there are other options as well If it's low traffic enough, you could even be able host the javascript apps there as well. If you want to host it on your own hardware it's only slightly more involved. You really dont "need" a server-side backend if you're just doing a low-to-medium-volume CMS.
posted by cgg at 12:59 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

I would strongly recommend moving to a hosted platform. You don't want to be responsible for patching Linux or the CMS when the inevitable security updates come out. It might seem easy to just spin up a VM now, but 2 years from now you'll be in a similar boat.

WPEngine is a great hosted Wordpress service, and I know that Squarespace and Wix also provide good hosted CMS options.
posted by kaefer at 1:04 PM on March 2, 2020 [10 favorites]

Hello, my shop develops Wordpress sites (mainly) and while I think WP is great, it's not great if you're not in a position to maintain the build. Same goes for Drupal, which is how you got where you are now.

WPEngine may, indeed, be a good answer for you if you are able to run the javascript apps on there, which without seeing it, is not a question to which I know the answer. It sounds like you may have some custom web development needs -- and you can have those met on a provider like WP Engine to some degree - but again without having a dev do an evaluation it is going to be very hard for anyone here to say. You can start with their support.

I super highly doubt that Squarespace and Wix are gonna let you run your custom JS apps.

I know one or two decent freelance WP developers if you need to go that route.
posted by Medieval Maven at 1:19 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you all! Followup answer to a question above: The current website, which still works but must be "restarted" often, is shaky because numerous websites (ours and partner orgs) rely on the same server/database/Drupal system and there are serious issues with deferred maintenance - security and (many) module updates. That is about all I can tell you atm, but yes, we have a history of trouble with _maintaining_ the websites we build.

Seems like hosted WP or possibly a static GitHub-based site (we are pretty low traffic) would work well, but I would like to know how we could still use our Javascript apps. The academic institution we live at may also have a hosting solution. I am investigating that too.
posted by Eriogonum at 1:55 PM on March 2, 2020

What do your javascript apps do? Do they rely on a backend server for data, accounts or anything else?
posted by signal at 1:57 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also, keep in mind that the actual hosting is the least complicated aspect. Focus on what tech you need. Hosts are cheap and plentiful.
posted by signal at 1:58 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: They query outside databases, not our backend, using an API and format the results (json or xml) into a tabular data catalog or bibliography. Other apps are in development (mapping research sites with leaflet, plotting data, etc.) and these could potentially use backend data at some point.
posted by Eriogonum at 2:15 PM on March 2, 2020

You should be able to do that all on a github hosted site. There's no problem running javascript apps on github. What you can't do (as far as I know) is run your own database but it sounds as if your database is nicely isolated from the website.
posted by metadave at 2:40 PM on March 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yes, WordPress on a managed host is your best bet, and of those, I think WPEngine is probably your best bet. Just use what they provide, pick a theme that you can envision your content in, and you'll be good to go. There should be no problem using your custom JS within that framework.

Here's a video on making a website w/ WPEngine. (Warning: I did not watch this video, so I can't vouch for its quality, but it looks like it should provide the basic info you need.)

(Yes, hosts are cheap and plentiful, but you do NOT want a cheap and plentiful host for your mission critical WordPress site.)

(Yes, GitHub sites are nice, but only if you don't ever change your site/don't need a content management system. I would not recommend trying to use a static site generator installed locally and deploying to GitHub pages, as it's almost certain to frustrate you and require a lot of attention unless you almost never change your website. This is from a person who loves static site generators.)

IAAWPD, IANYWPD (I am a WordPress developer, I am not your WordPress developer :)
posted by nosila at 2:47 PM on March 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Squarespace. Looks professional, hacker protected and stupidly easy to add more pages.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:00 PM on March 2, 2020

To address the immediate problem of the looming proposal review, is it possible to trace the problems to a particular update or time period? Can you to revert the site to an older backup to get the org through the next few weeks and buy you some time for a more robust permanent solution?
posted by yeahlikethat at 4:27 PM on March 2, 2020

I tried squarespace and wix at length and ended up going with strikingly. It is super easy to use, had just the right amount of choice and editing for me to get something I really liked and tweak it without too much fuss, and their customer service has been totally fantastic (I asked them to tweak a few things further for me).
posted by jrobin276 at 5:09 PM on March 2, 2020

can you move the js apps out of the rest of the site? then you treat the problem as a CMS with links to a separate js-hosting situation. this might simplify things some.
posted by kokaku at 12:04 AM on March 3, 2020

Get off your existing server - it's not being maintained correctly thus is a mitigable risk. Go with a Hosted WordPress solution like WPEngine (well worth its cost for its level of support). They'll also provide you with access to a solid professional theme for free. Leverage your existing content to create a WordPress site quickly. They'll be able to help you with integrating your JS apps. Wix will kill any SEO you have, and Squarespace won't work well at all with JS apps. Budget to have a maintenance company or freelancer keep your website's plugins up to date - WPEngine lets you test these updates on their Staging copy of your site. This is what I do professionally, and this is the way.
posted by Meagan at 1:16 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

On the discussion of github sites I've just put together a site using Hugo.
It lives in github and is then hosted by netlify.

Basically whenever I push a new commit to github netlify builds it and publishes it.
It seems to get around the problems nosila was talking about above? But I'm not really very web-dev-y so this may be dumb advice.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 1:37 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]

Since you need to get this up and running quickly, doing whatever you are already comfortable with is probably the right call. So if you're used to a CMS with a database, go ahead.

That said, it sounds like you are genuinely running a static website, and using a static site host like GitHub Pages will substantially simplify things: because there's no database or application code running, you've removed 2 tiers where things can go wrong as well as a substantial amount of potential security problems and maintenance. And it's very simple to set up: just static files. If you do you have a page that changes periodically (e.g., a blog) there are ways to accomplish that easily with a static site generator (GitHub Pages uses Jekyll). But you might not even need that. You really may want to look at moving the static parts of your website to a static host which would mean never running into this sort of problem again.
posted by Tehhund at 3:23 PM on March 3, 2020

If keeping it in Drupal for now seems easiest, it should be easy to port it to shared hosting.

All you'd have to do is export the database and copy over the files.

I do lots of Drupal sites; feel free to MeMail me if I can help.
posted by kristi at 5:01 PM on March 3, 2020