The world outside of WordPress

WordPress has more than 40% of the CMS market share. But we are not alone in the IT world. There is a lot happening outside of WordPress.

My background

I was a PHP developer specializing in WordPress for most of my career. If you are following me on social media, you probably noticed that more than a year ago, I switched from development to DevRel. With this switch, I had to break out of the WordPress bubble. Don't get me wrong - I still love WordPress and most of the community behind it. But...

There is a world outside.

It's big and overwhelming and sometimes scary. But you know what? It's also fun, engaging, and very refreshing. Because I'm a DevRel, I don't have many chances to focus on something particular. Still, I'm having a lot of fun exploring different CMSs (like Statamic, Craft, or Sanity), new approaches (at last, I understood why the headless approach is so important), and diving into tech I never used before (hello Buildpacks).

Of course, this new world is also full of dramas, but it's a great place to learn something new. To compare how others lead their projects, work as a community, and deal with problems.

I can't wait for 2023, when I'm planning to visit quite a few conferences - most of them will be non-WordPress. This will also be refreshing to see them and compare them with WordCamps.

And this is something I would advise every developer - be like a tourist, visit new places and learn about different cultures. There is nothing more valuable than learning from others.

Where is WordPress heading?

It's pretty hard to say. We love to hide behind our market share because if we have 40% of the market, everything is great, right?

Recently, Jean Galea wrote a fantastic article that sums up most of the biggest problems in the WordPress space. When we put everything in one place, we can see WordPress space as a bit dysfunctional.

It's also worth mentioning that some companies, always seen as 100% WordPress, are looking for an additional income source. Just look at Yoast with their Shopify plugin or Kinsta with their Application and Database hosting. I think that it's a very healthy approach. Such an approach gives them much more stability in case the WordPress market changes.

On the other hand, from the developer's perspective, WordPress is often seen as either legacy or boring. This makes it more challenging to find new talents interested in contributing to WordPress. For sure many of them will pick something related to Laravel or Jamstack.

What will I do in the future?

As I mentioned, switching to DevRel and breaking out of the WordPress bubble was one of the best things that happened to me. WordPress did several things really great, but it also made some mistakes. Looking at this with an open mind and from multiple perspectives is very interesting.

That's why I see my future in DevRel. It gives me much freedom to observe the IT world without closing myself in a bubble again.