Might you have tips or opinions on what to use?
Let me speak from experience on developing my personal web sites, working from the most recent to the oldest. These have mostly been done on cPanel-based providers, where “one-button” installation and upgrades through Softaculous reduces tedious installation procedures.
(1) Grav, for mostly static web sites, e.g. http://openinnovationlearning.com/online/ and https://systemschanges.com/online/ .
- ↑ Flat-file content management makes replicating and moving sites easy via FTP.
- ↑ Direct editing of source files (i.e. Markdown) now largely eased with GUI interfaces.
- ↑ Well-architected, themes are loosely coupled (developer Andy Miller had experience with Joomla before Grav).
- ↑ Active and friendly open source community forums.
- ↑ Active development of Bootstrap 4 Open Matter theme by Paul Hibbitts (an instructor at SFU).
(2) Hexo static web site generator on Gitlab (e.g. http://daviding.gitlab.io/ )
- ↑ Completely open source technologies on Gitlab Pages, free hosting for beginners, potential to migrate to other Gitlab providers (unlike Github).
- ↑ Static site can be generated from node.js, that is relatively easily installed on Linux, MacOS and Windows computers.
- ↓ Any dynamic features (e.g. photo resizing, comments, contact pages) require complementary services from other providers.
- ↓ Git isn’t easy for beginners to master, although some editing could be done via the Gitlab web interface.
(3) Ghost publishing platform (I had version 1.1 installed on cPanel, but by version 2.0, it was no longer a one-button install).
- ↑ Based on node.js rather than PHP, a new completely implementation, possibly attracts fewer hackers.
- ↑ Native apps include Android, making simple photoblogging practical.
- ↓ Self-hosted community is less active, many prefer to pay for the hosted version.
(4) Drupal content management system, e.g. http://coevolving.com/commons/
- ↑ Bulletproof CMS, seems practically inpenetrable to hackers.
- ↑ Upside to enterprise-scale, in use by many large organizations.
- ↑ Active open sharing community for plugins and themes.
- ↓ Upgrades from Drupal 5 → 6 → 7 → 8 have involved significant work, the migration to Drupal 9 in 2020 is promised to be easier.
(5) Wordpress (e.g. http://coevolving.com/blogs/ , http://daviding.com/blog back past 2006).
- ↑ Most popular open source package in use on the Internet.
- ↑ Beginners can start for free on wordpress.com , and then migrate to self-hosting if additional features are desired.
- ↑ Many themes and plugins available.
- ↑ Migration from release to release is well-automated, although the migration to the Gutenberg interface has seen significant criticism and reversion to the Classic Editor (with 4+ million installations!)
- ↓ Popularity draws many hackers, so updates now seem released almost monthly.
- ↓ Multiuser Buddypress really needs professional support. At the move to https://stream.syscoi.com/ in January 2018, we opted to pay wordpress.com to support the O2 theme.
Prior to 2006, I had used Pivot, a flat-file CMS, but the blogging community soon moved over to Wordpress. I occasionally use Dokuwiki for quick collaborations, and the product has been reliable with incremental updates.
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