Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48709796

by anitroves • 25 days ago

12 45 25 days ago

news.ycombinator.com

Just curious if there is any better alternative for those who just knows basics of coding and are learning as they build.

ceejayoz2• 25 days ago

No. WordPress is a giant nest of security holes.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

So what's the alternative

ceejayoz2• 25 days ago

Depends on the languages you know and the type of sites you're building.

not_your_vase• 25 days ago

What's your goal? If you want just a random site, then WP will do the job. If you want to learn web development, then I'd start it with a local http server (apache/nginx/whatever's your poison) and start writing html/css/js by hand, and see how it builds up line by line.

dd-sharma2• 25 days ago

I love using WP for my blog and I've a self-hosted version. In your question "new websites for beginner" indicates that the user is a beginner and wants to build websites. If websites have simple and static content that don't involve any serious stuff (e.g. e-commerce) then WP is probably ok. But for serious work i won't use it.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

What would be your choice for serious work then

dd-sharma2• 20 days ago

For serious work, depending on the complexity of underlying functionality, I would choose the appropriate architecture and technology. For example, for a complex and large scale system I would go ahead with a 3-tier architecture; Frontend - React/Typescript, Java/Python/GO based Services for middle tier, and Relational or NOSQL database depending on the data throughput and integrity requirements. For simpler websites there are many different options based on how much time you want to invest.

basch• 25 days ago

I’d almost say the opposite.

For a simple website it’s overkill.

For a serious website there’s not much else that has the extensibility. Woocommerce is nearly unrivaled. There isn’t another ecosystem like it. I would think this community would lean towards the open source leaning products to the shopifys.

chistev• 25 days ago

I've never tried learning WordPress, I know they say it makes building stuff easy, but I just enjoy writing code, man. It's fun.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

Do you use AI while deveoping if no you are legend

daemonologist• 25 days ago

I would definitely not recommend WordPress.

If you just want a website for cheap: Bearblog, carrd.co, etc.

if you want all the bells and whistles on a platter: Squarespace, Wix, etc.

if you want to supply all the HTML/CSS yourself: Github Pages or Cloudflare Pages.

(Later, if you want to host the above (except the "bells and whistles" tier) yourself: Hetzner, Digital Ocean, etc.)

preg_match2• 25 days ago

No. Wordpress requires overly complex administration and deployment. There’s just a lot that goes on with Wordpress, and you’d need a VPS to deploy it just by the nature of Wordpress.

If you’re building a static site - meaning, a site which does not have any forms which require backend functions - you should use a static site generator. If you’re not building a static site, I recommend starting with a static site. It’s just a lot less to keep in your head as a beginner.

My recommendation is Astro. I like it because it makes it easy and straightforward to create a static site. And, you will also learn JavaScript along the way, without building out a node backend or even anything on the front end.

But, if you really want to learn, I recommend noting. Yes, nothing. Just HTML files in a folder, a css stylesheet, maybe some JS files, and a web server. For deployment, you don’t need a web server config or a VPS. Just use cloud flare pages, link it up with GitHub, and boom, you have a static site.

Don’t be intimidated. If you do just HTML, you can learn a lot and you get the nitty gritty. You understand how the site actually functions from start to end.

aborsy• 25 days ago

You probably need a template for the page format and style, which you customize and expand writing your HTML. Otherwise starting from scratch, the page will be ugly without a lot of coding.

What’s the best way to get the template?

toozitax• 24 days ago

Yea wordpress is overly complex for no reason at all. And suprisingly learning html is easier haha

fdgwhite• 24 days ago

Do you want to create websites or learn to create websites. If the former, WP is fine.

preg_match2• 19 days ago

I’d argue even in the former Wordpress is a poor choice.

Yes the ecosystem is big. But Wordpress is annoying and so unbelievably overkill for static sites. This is a cost and maintenance issue: you need a backend, you have to maintain it. Maintaining Wordpress is notoriously difficult and time consuming.

So sure, the “cost” of Wordpress appears low because of the ecosystem. But you’re trading upfront cost for recurring cost. That’s typically a bad trade, IMO.

hstaab• 25 days ago

Cloudflare launched some alternative (also compatible iirc) to WP built on Astro this year. I haven’t tried it but might be worth a look.

mmarian• 25 days ago

TIL https://blog.cloudflare.com/emdash-wordpress/

anitroves10• 25 days ago

Will try it

TheWiggles• 25 days ago

I would recommend looking at static sites for learning the basics of building websites. There are a ton of static site generators in different programming languages. You'll be able to to build as you go and learn how the various parts of a website work together.

I recommend looking at jamstack.org as they have a long list of options.

Personally, I enjoy Hugo, a Go based static site generator. Though if you're unsure then try a couple out and see which you like best.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

Now that will do for me

frollogaston• 25 days ago

Wordpress is good. People complain about it because it's popular. Or Github pages is also fine if you just want to write and host HTML.

nicbou2• 25 days ago

It depends.

Personally, I would prefer a static site generator, simply because it requires zero maintenance to safely keep a static site online.

It might also be a good introduction to git and various deployment methods.

I run a website for a living, and moving to a static site generator is the best decision I've made.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

I have many functions to do and thus can't continue with static website only

nicbou2• 24 days ago

So do I, but those run on a separate Django backend. It's a lot easier to implement backend functionality in not-Wordpress

type0• 25 days ago

Publii static site generator is great for beginners and easier than WP for simple sites

https://getpublii.com/

cjk2• 25 days ago

Depends on your goal.

If you’re not interested in hand-maintaining the code of the website(s), and you just want a nice GUI for publishing pages/posts/etc., then I’d say use some hosted platform like Squarespace.

For actually learning how to build websites, start with something more low-level and barebones like a static site generator (Jekyll, Hugo, Gatsby, etc.), or even plain GitHub Pages without a static site generator for the most “manual” experience.

In neither of those cases would I consider WordPress.

anitroves10• 25 days ago

What if i say my start was from wordpress so what shoyld I use then lets say I know basics of html and other built some php functions but now I wanna code without using AI

cjk2• 25 days ago

In that case, I would consider a lightweight static site generator.

It sounds like you're fairly new to programming, so I would suggest a static site generator that is easy to install and use.

Zola[1] is less well-known, but it's easy to install and fast. I tend to use Hugo[2] the most these days, which is fast and has solid documentation, but its template syntax is really annoying compared to Zola.

[1] https://www.getzola.org/documentation/getting-started/overvi...

[2] https://gohugo.io/getting-started/quick-start/

matt3D• 25 days ago

I find it a bit odd that none of the comments so far have mentioned LLMs.

Astro with a good understanding of how to build using a coding agent (my go to is the BMAD method)

4thOfficial• 25 days ago

I've always been a big fan of the WordPress community, which is a part of how WordPress works. A few years ago Wordpress would have definitely been my go to, but there are a ton of alternatives now (great suggestions in the comments here)

saluki• 24 days ago

No No No, start building websites with Claude Code, even if you don't know the basics of coding that's going to give you a better and more secure website.

WordPress was a good idea over a decade ago if you were doing affiliate marketing and couldn't code. But now everyone can code.

nsmith22• 24 days ago

As others have noted, WordPress is complex to setup/administer. If you are just prototyping/learning, try https://ht-ml.app

It is free, and doesn't require any backend setup.

kristianp• 24 days ago

Websites or web apps?

For web apps, Rails, Django, Laravel. React is the "standard" client framework of the last number of years. Perhaps someone can give advice about those web techs.

DamnInteresting• 24 days ago

I've been building sites on WordPress for over 20 years, and it's fine, but if I were building a new site today, I'd probably use ClassicPress[1]. It's a fork of WordPress that eliminates a lot of the cruft that WordPress has accumulated over the years.

[1] https://www.classicpress.net/

JuicerSocial• 24 days ago

No, I don't think so. If you are beginner why not start with something very simple like HTML, CSS and plain Javascript. This is the best way to learn it and to actually build something. Later you can go with more complex solutions based on your needs.

anitroves10• 24 days ago

I am learning these languages and have built some simple functions using them

haute_cuisine• 24 days ago

If you want a simple website for beginner, you don't need wordpress or any other page generator. You can just write a simple `index.html` and upload it to any static website hoster (ex: github/gitlab pages).

Ask HN: Is WordPress the best way to create new websites for beginner

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