WordPress
The open-source CMS behind a large part of the web, with a paid hosted version and a huge choice of extensions.
For a blog or showcase site run by one person, a home-made CMS (Markdown, images, drafts, RSS feed, sitemap) can be set up in a weekend. But WordPress is already free and self-hostable: the real question is not “how much do I pay”, it is “do I want to maintain my own CMS rather than a system every freelancer knows”. As soon as there is a shop, a form or a client to hand over to, simply install WordPress.
What you lose
- Extensions (SEO, forms, cache, statistics, backups) that install in one click.
- WooCommerce and everything that looks like commerce.
- The block editor and page builders for non-technical people.
- The option of handing the site to any developer.
- Security updates handled by others.
The prompt to build it yourself
Build me a self-hosted personal CMS for a single author, to replace WordPress. Empty folder, no cloud service, no telemetry. Stack: Node 22, TypeScript, Fastify, SQLite (better-sqlite3, file ./data/cms.db), Eta server-side templates, markdown-it (with code highlighting and HTML sanitising). No client framework. To do: - Posts and pages: title, slug, Markdown body, excerpt, tags, status (draft, scheduled, published), publication date. - Administration at /admin: one cookie session, a single administrator, password hash in .env. Editor with live preview, saving as draft, publishing, deletion with confirmation. - Image upload (resized with sharp) with a button that pastes the Markdown into the post. - Public routes: paginated home, /posts/:slug, /:slug, /tags/:tag. Feed /feed.xml, /sitemap.xml, OpenGraph tags. - Full-text search (FTS5). Scheduled posts appear on time, without cron. - Import of a folder of Markdown files with YAML frontmatter, to load a converted WordPress export. - `npm run backup`: dated archive of the database and files. Out of scope: extensions, themes, comments, multi-user, e-commerce, block editor. README: installation, generating the password hash, running behind Caddy with TLS. A sample-data script (three posts, one page).
Frequently asked questions
- Can WordPress be replaced by a custom-built tool?
- casevibecode verdict: Partly replaceable. For a blog or showcase site run by one person, a home-made CMS (Markdown, images, drafts, RSS feed, sitemap) can be set up in a weekend. But WordPress is already free and self-hostable: the real question is not “how much do I pay”, it is “do I want to maintain my own CMS rather than a system every freelancer knows”. As soon as there is a shop, a form or a client to hand over to, simply install WordPress.
- What is WordPress used for?
- The open-source CMS behind a large part of the web, with a paid hosted version and a huge choice of extensions.
Community feedback
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