After a dozen years, WordPress is still my go-to CMS, design and development platform.
- The rock solid architecture and code base is great alone, but the open source nature of WordPress that has fostered a massive global community of 3rd party developers who create plugins, add-ons and enhancements, both functional and design related, is amazing.
- WordPress is extremely easy to install and, because it's become the de facto CMS for most websites, many hosting companies make installing it even easier with 'push button' tools inside the hosting account that allow you to install it without any technical experience or need to access the actual directory via FTP etc.
- When working with client websites, another feature I really appreciate is WordPress' ease of migration. I build a client website on my own server, and then move it to the client's hosting account when it's complete and ready to go live. I use a simple plugin that allows me to do this in just a few clicks from the front-end WordPress dashboard, without the need to access the database or hosting backend.
Cons
- While the amazing WordPress developer community has created hundreds of useful plugins for adding functionality like duplication pages and posts, changing the display order of pages and posts in the dashboard and migrating a site, it would be nice if WordPress would create those features (and others) built into the platform. It can be cumbersome to install so many plugins (and shouldn't be necessary for WordPress-specific functions related to administrating the WordPress platform itself.
- Another major shortcoming that's frustrated me for years is the extremely limited functionality of the Media Library. For a site that has lots of media (images, videos, etc.) it's incredibly difficult to organize and manage. There really needs to be a folder system to separate, group and search for media items. I've tried countless 3rd party plugins that try to overcome this, but have yet to find one that is effective as well as drag and drop easy.