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General Discussion

Daniel Gibson
Daniel Gibson
15,452 Points

Are most freelancers using wordpress

Developer: "Would you like to be able to update and edit content yourself?" Client: "Yes!"

I personally can't see why any client wouldn't want to be in control of the website, so becoming a freelancer would I really just be producing Wordpress themes?

2 Answers

István Turupoli
István Turupoli
11,950 Points

Hi!

There are countless other CMS out there. It all depends on the clinent's needs and the project. WordPress, Joomla, Drupal are just the most popular ones. On the e-commerce front, I mostly work with Magento for example. In the end, I think it all comes down the personal preference.

I think it's best to always choose the right CMS based on the project specifications. Or if you know you want to work with WordPress, that plan the project accordingly.

Daniel Gibson
Daniel Gibson
15,452 Points

Hi, thanks for the response.

I have been researching e-commerce but yet to start a project on it, which I would do before I begin freelancing.

I always thought I would create everything from scratch and build a complete website but with all the CMS out there, including them would benefit a client.

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
9,767 Points

Don't even entertain building a CMS for each project you do. Why would you when WordPress has had hundreds of thousands of hours spent on it over the last 10 years? I develop with WP so it's my example but the other big ones have had the same. You got to think how much it's going to cost a client as well. Unless it's a very bespoke site, there's no need to think about making a CMS. Just get comfortable with one and master it.

Daniel Gibson
Daniel Gibson
15,452 Points

Thanks for the response, I have seen your posts around the forum and was hoping you would comment.

I don't mean to build a CMS for each project and that is out of my skill set unless its a very basic CMS.

What I mean is, my idea of a web developer would be to create websites without a CMS using HTML, CSS, JS etc. for instance when I create websites for practice I rarely use a CMS because I am happy to go into the files and edit code or use a MySQL database to store information but if I was to hand this over to a client I doubt they would know how to do this, unless like you said, the developer builds a custom CMS.

I assume 99% of clients will want to be able to update and edit the website, which would lead the developer to use a CMS such as WordPress in their projects.. with that in mind does this mean most web developers could actually be considered 'theme developers' and spend most of the time creating and customising themes?