Wordpress Alternative in 2019 | Python vs PHP What’s better?

Abhishek Meena
7 min readOct 8, 2019

From blogging to CMS to extremely appealing themes and mushrooming plugins, WordPress has become the darling of many quick starters leaving less room for WordPress alternatives but in WordPress SEO plugins are not so good, and people are looking for WordPress alternative in 2019.

When it comes to Wordpress web development, we say a big NO to our clients. You will figure this out if you hang on and keep reading below. We will approach this debate with PHP vs. Python as well.

Most importantly, at Quantamix Solutions, we develop professional applications with customization options, in-built scalability, and test-driven release to the production environments. We add value by embedding cutting edge AI tools and techniques in SEO for digital marketing. For this to work, we need a robust framework which meets our and our client’s needs, and honestly, the WordPress SEO Plugin is not good, and it doesn’t fit for our needs.

I am not a WordPress newbie. I have used it in the past and still using it when I want quick sandboxing and prototyping. Now, this time, I am convinced I am not going to use it again for my new project, and I will tell you why you also don’t use WordPress.

Are you getting lured by quick 5-minute installation, stunning themes, a plethora of great plugins for your mashup, great one-click SEO…and honeymoon with PHP?

Why should you not care about 5-minutes installation?

For a professionally well-crafted idea, priority is most important in terms of Minimum Viable Product. The estimate of costs, timelines, and functional features of the end product are the most critical factors than quick, easy installation.

If you are not a quick-to-shine hobbyist blogger and if you are looking for a professional web developer, then use of the 5-minute drag and drop installation is not appealing.

Crappy extensibility of Themes

What you care most about a professional web application is the flexible, and customizable design that fits into your product requirements. For your professional product, you want to have structured and well-synced front-end design components based on established frameworks rather than something which works out of thin air like a mashup of WordPress plugins.

Forget a Github-like version control system.

A few months ago, a client of a friend asked us to transfer his WordPress site to a new application. We had to go back and forth due to the complicated UI UX design feedback. When we deployed a new site in Python Flask and wanted to go back to his old WordPress site, we could not find a versioning system that we could revert again. We had to depend on the full back of the folder rather than a separated backup of data and code like a popular Github version control system.

SEO myth bused for WordPress outdated plugins

Game of SEO is ever-changing, and now it is no more the same in the year 2012. AI tools and techniques in SEO for Digital Marketing are standard, and Google has transformed the way you want to get your website on the first page of Google. Top SEO factors like Pretty URLs, metadata, alt text, sitemaps, keywords, backlinks, etc. are not taken care of by Google, and you no longer need a plugin like Yoast to do it for you.

For professional software development, you should be prepared to use advanced AI tools and techniques in SEO rather than rely on old and misleading WordPress SEO plugins. Google has gone smart with the use of AI in SEO. At Quantamix Solutions, we are strong proponents for AI tools and techniques in SEO for Search Engine Marketing.

WordPress Security issues in Plugins

Wordpress security vulnerabilities are known in the Web Development community. Before we can be confident of sharing such bold views, we at Quantamix Solutions did a sandbox phase for our DailyTop. Deals projects.

We were in the middle of SEO optimization strategy and updated Yoast SEO WordPress plugin to premium features. Suddenly our Sitemap broke, which leads to Google Search Engine not able to crawl our pages for search engine indexing. Our upgrade introduced some whitespace in the code which unfortunately we could not trace and correct ourselves due to messy PHP code.

The problem is that by installing easy 5-minute drag and drop plugins, you are introducing WordPress vulnerabilities and exploits in themes and existing plugins. This WordPress security issue is because you are installing executable codes directly through the WordPress admin interface without any testing of the code in development and user acceptance staging environment. For professional web applications, we advise our clients to work with a reliable web development framework that has in-build security and testing.

Honeymoon with PHP is over…Python is the new darling of web development

This love with Python is not only an opinion but a hard-learned lesson. A critical one. The traditional web development is over. The AI has taken over every aspect of how websites rank and index in Google and how content is designed using AI tools and techniques in SEO.

When it comes to Machine Learning Algorithms, Python is the real charm, its real darling of AI.

The python code structure is easy to read and organize. In python, you do more with less code. Python helps organize your application like logical functional blueprints representing your business model.

PHP vs. Python web development is a continuous debate. Python web development vs. PHP web development is the most interesting debate. In a recent Stack Overflow survey, Python has a share of 38.8% while PHP only has 30.7%. In terms of salary, Python was listed with an average of $98,000 (in the US) while PHP was not even in the list of the highest-paid programming language. Same survey list, Python as the most wanted language with 25.1% (PHP with only 4.1%) and the 3rd most loved with 68%.

Python has the following advantages over PHP.

  1. Python is easy to learn, which translates to lower cost and faster development resulting in quicker time to market.
  2. Python is easy to read, not strict to syntax structure.
  3. Python is a general-purpose programming language.
  4. Python enables you to use the front-end stack which fits your given situation,
  5. Python adopts a headless CMS approach, allows you to choose the database of your choice (Check Flask vs. Django database choice).

PHP has following drawbacks

  1. PHP is challenging to learn to result in a long time to market.
  2. PHP has strict syntax rules, and syntax structure is ugly.
  3. PHP is designed only for web applications and not for standalone applications.

Python web development is high-speed, scalable, secure, and easy to use.

Most importantly, the current stage of web development needs AI and Machine learning models. Python has the most advanced libraries like sci-kit learn, Theano, TensorFlow, Pandas. These work perfect with python web applications.

Overall, the value from Python web development outweighs the cost and “stuck with it feeling” of Wordpress.

Final thoughts

We’re not in the business of promoting one framework over other. We first apply Web Development and SEO tools and techniques to our own Quantamix Solutions business model before recommending it to our audience. Our current website https://quantamixsolutions.com is based on the Python Flask framework in the backend and several easy to integrate Front-end UI/UX design elements.

For some hobbyist bloggers and lazy “Get hit and rank quick mentality” people, WordPress is still the right choice, but for a professional web application, it is a big NO.

Overall, we must realize that content is king, and content AI is a rapidly emerging trend in 2019. From simple blogging platform to newsletters, email marketing to a startup site, listing directories sites to online store e-commerce sites using AI tools and techniques in boosting Local SEO is getting common. We are not in the age of ‘one-page-static-website’ phase.

For the AI-driven content development and enhancement on auto-pilot mode, we highly recommend Python-based web development framework as compared to all PHP based alternatives, including WordPress.

For all ‘one-page-static-website,’ it is heavily overkilled to use WordPress like websites as much better, and low-cost WordPress alternatives in 2019 exist.

Originally published at https://quantamixsolutions.com.

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