Detta är ju en stor fråga som många har olika uppfattningar om. Vad är WordPress för system egentligen? Många anser det bara är en bloggplattform medans vi WordPress-utvecklare alltid försöker argumentera för motsatsen. Så vad är det egentligen?

En amerikansk webbdesign blogg skrev nämligen ett blogginlägg om just detta, blogginlägget var väldigt bra men det som gjorde inlägget så intressant var diskussionen som framfördes bland kommentarerna. Det är den absolut mest intressantaste diskussion jag sett om själva frågan, ”Är WordPress ett CMS eller en bloggplattform?”. Nedan följer ett flertal intressanta citat från denna diskussion.

MBJWORK, citat från själva inlägget:

But the other thing that strikes me as odd about the notion that WordPress is not a “real CMS” because of its focus on blogging is this: How can it be a bad thing for a content management system to have blogging as the centerpiece of its functionality?

Put aside the fact that you can easily customize WP to not include a blog and think about the relationship of the word content to the word blogging.

What is a blog really but a continually updated stream of web content? Text, images, video, audio, links… content. Most of the websites that I have been visiting regularly for years and years are blogs. You know why I visit those sites? Because of their content.

Content is king, and blogs are the kings of content.

Inlägget fortsätter med denna avslutning:

In fact, when I build a website with no blog for a client in WordPress, I take comfort in knowing that if they decide to add a blog later, I can easily set them up with the best blog engine around in a snap. Considering how important blogs are to building strong content, it’s only natural to think a client might want to move in that direction at some point as their needs grow and change.

In times past, maybe WordPress was a blogging platform that could be twisted and bent into working as a CMS. These days, it’s a great CMS that includes a great blogging platform.

If blogging is at the center of WordPress by default, so what? That’s not a weakness, it’s a strength. For many site owners, the blog is the most important content section on the whole website. Why treat it as an afterthought?

Justin Tadlock i diskussionen:

What really gets me are people that say, “I’m not using WordPress as a blog; I’m using it as a CMS.” A “blog” is a particular kind of site. It says nothing about your CMS. You can use a CMS to create a blog, forum, event calendar, social network, or any other kind of site. Granted, some are better at making particular kinds of sites than others, but that doesn’t change their CMS status.

Chris Coyier i diskussionen:

I’d challenge them to argue against this:

I’ve built around 50 sites powered by WordPress. They are all successful in their own rights. With none of them I feel limited in what I am able to do. I can jump into any of them and feel comfortable right away because I’m already familiar with the system. What can be wrong about that?

Stephen Cronin i diskussionen:

By definition WordPress is a CMS: it does manage content and does it fantastically for most sites. It’s just there’s a small, somewhat backwards, relatively closed world where it’s not quite the right fit. But that’s okay – for the vast majority it’s perfect!

Jake Goldmann i diskussionen:

Here here. We’ve moved a number of clients off of so called enterprise open CMS’ such as Nuke (and some lesser known commercial ones) to WordPress. They’ll not only agree that WordPress is a CMS – they’ll tell you it’s their best CMS experience yet.

There have been times when we’ve shied away from WordPress in favor of Drupal, due to very complex content types and structures. But with custom post types coming in 3.0, those instances will be fewer and further between.

Ned i diskussionen:

This argument comes up all the time but one thing I know is that the people who say WP isn’t a CMS will be proven wrong. With the new post types and things like Brad’s plugin for creating UIs for the new post types it won’t be long before vendors selling enterprise CMSs have to start spending a lot of money trying to convince people that they are better than WordPress.

Mike Schinkel i diskussionen:

The biggest reason IMO that the question is even an issue is when people discuss what should be included in WordPress core and what shouldn’t. There is a vocal segment who say “WP should be only be a blog; if you want a CMS choose Drupal et. al.” when requests for functionality needed to support non-blog focused content comes up. But once a version of WP is released the debate is merely academic.

One example of the blog-centric bias is the new TwentyTen theme which has was “designed to be the very best blog theme” but “not a theme framework (i.e. not addressing CMS use-cases.)”[1]

Internet Mogal i diskussionen:

I think the problem some people have with thinking Wordpress is just for blogging is that they often times don’t even know that there’s a difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org. That’s usually the first line out of my “why you should consider WP” speech. The people I talk to about their sites assume Wordpress.com when hearing Wordpress and sometimes a little education will give them the insight to look beyond the blogging-only stigma. I try not to use the word CMS b/c it’s another acronym that, apparently, means something different to different people.

Detta är WordPress communityn i ett nötskal. Många kloka tankar samlade på en plats. Personligen tycker jag det är en självklarhet att WordPress är ett CMS, men i nuläget kanske inte helt väl anpassat till att vara ett ”Enterprise-system” än. I WordPress 3.0 lär vi se ännu fler företag som väljer att köra WordPress på sin webbplats. En sak är i alla fall säkert, det är en fröjd att arbeta med WordPress! Releasen av 3.0 lär vi se relativt snart eftersom betafas 2 har redan påbörjats. Nyfiken att veta mer om WordPress 3.0? Läs mitt gamla blogginlägg ifall du är nyfiken att veta mera!

Vad anser du själv? Är WordPress ett CMS eller bara en bloggningsplattform?