I didn’t say CP installs, I said plugins.
I agree that established plugin developers might not be bothered about CP if they are already making good money from WP. But it’s a very congested market, as anyone who ever tried searching for a plugin will know. For the smaller players it would seem to make really good sense to support CP. - it requires no extra work really. If the plugin works with WP4.9 it will work with CP. And you would have the chance to pick up a possible 1700 more users.
Not ONLY 1700 potential users, but DEDICATED users. That’s very much different than WP users, where there no longer appears to be a sense of community and helping each other out, as there is with the CP community
That’s exactly right Dick, As soon as a plugin dev commits to CP, that plugin will become the one that all CP users will head for. It seems obvious to me that devs should be getting in early on this. Nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
I’ve actually lost count of how many CP sites I have now … not because there’s a lot, but because I’ve forgotten to keep track.
It is certainly 4 with another 3 in active development, and another new one this week. I think that means we have ½%!
When we can (rebuilds etc.), we’ll move other clients over. Currently we’re using Padma Unlimited and ElementorPro with ClssicPress.
All discussion related to the ClassicPress tagline and slogan have been moved to this topic: About ClassicPress being business-focused
The committee hears everyone’s input and truly appreciates everyone who took the time to voice their opinions. We are considering next steps and will keep you all updated over on that thread 
James - can you provide an update on how many installs CP now has, please? Thanks!
Wait just a little longer for Gutenberg editor to break the nerves ( or something else) of those who maintain websites and then you’ll see how many will switch to Classic Press! lol And this will happen suddenly as all such kind of similar projects need a bit of time to become known from one user to another.
Still holding strong at around 1,700 sites. The way we are measuring this number fluctuates a lot so we probably need to take a look at a more exact way to calculate it sometime.
There are for sure more than these. It is impossible to know how many are using CP to design websites in localhost without having uploaded them online. What I mean is that they are still in a testing mode.
Generally speaking all things need their time to get known.
I remember the first years of Linux Mint. It was another one of the thousand linux distributions. It took a couple of years to become known but when linux users realized that Mint was some sort of improved version of Ubuntu and Debian with better codecs and without bugs they switched to it in a matter of months. Now is one of the best known and most used distributions.
Most people are reluctant to changes ( mostly due to insecurities) but if they get pissed off they make these changes without hesitating.
Then “being there” becomes very important!
Here is the problem as I see it. As Gutenberg has progressed, so has the popular page builders like Divi. They work great with WordPress and you can continue building the way you always have pretty much.
Everybody has heard of WordPress and no clients know what Classic Press is. They want to go with a known entity and all my clients know if they get in there and fiddle with the layout and break it, then they will pay me my hourly rate to fix it.
While I want to see this project succeed, I can’t just ignore what’s going on with WordPress. I need to evolve with it so I can give my clients what they want.
I’ve been building new sites not using the classic editor plugin and instead using the page builders interface which is what I always did anyways. I’ve done custom theme layouts, custom php, etc with WP 5.2.2 and have not had any issues.
My biggest concern with Classic Press is the adoption of the plug-ins. Yes, many work fine and still support WP 4.9 but as WP evolves, they will eventually stop supporting the 4.9 version at which point the plug-ins will no longer be able to be updated or they will stop working.
This is why having a real and accurate number for installs of CP is important. That is the first thing a plug-in developer is going to look at. If there is not enough user base, it will not be economical for them to maintain a version for CP and WP in tandem.
I’ve not written CP off but I watch for the install numbers. Until I see those numbers really start to take off, I’m not going to make the jump.
This discussion is interesting, and I will like to contribute. You see, sometimes it’s not about the number of CP installs, let me refer to one of my favourite quotes - It’s not how big the house is, it’s how happy the home is.
I can see the point you are trying to make, which is - Massive user base means more dough right? Yeah but to a limit, which is in two folds:
1.) Create Plugins/Themes for Classicpress, and watch how it grow - there is a reason no one has been able to compete with Yoast, with over 5 million installs on Wordpress, and running on over 9 million sites. Source: Wikipedia - Yoast.
I see this as an opportunity, there is absolutely nothing to lose, and more to gain.
Edit: Codepotent is already doing this 
With over 1,700 installs, which I am very sure it is more than that now, It’s a great starting point for any developer. I just joined this month, and I am super enjoying every bit of Classicpress, both on the forum, and on Slack (@ElisabettaCarrara I see you here).
I have ported about 4 websites to classic press now, and I am currently working on some stuff sidely. Repeat after me, Classicpress is gonna be great, and the success of it is in our hands, you, me, and our thoughts.
Lastly, If you know or have doubt isn’t gonna be the perfect fit for you, Respect your instinct.
Horlaes.
Embed the features that the plugins with most installations offer into the CP core and then you’ll see how many will be those who wouldn’t prefer to use a wordpress version that gives whatever is needed from the very first installation without depending on the plugins that the one or the other individual or company will bother to support or won’t.
That would really make the difference.
Most of the thousands plugins that are now available are different versions of all about the same things.
Security, Appearance,Usability. These three things that WP doesn’t offer with the initial installation.
You get for instance a gallery option but the galleries don’t have lightbox, don’t put the images in order, don’t put images side by side etc etc and then you start adding the plugin universe to make your gallery work. Or you replace it with an external bloatware Gallery plugin that offers the basics and a trillion other things, plus some ads which you have to pay in order to get rid of them!
Same with security issues.
I have to run a plugin to block an Ukranian bot othewise I have to edit htaccess every other day. What this stupid plugin is able to do could be done by the cms. Why should it be something extra written by an unknown person and not part of the cms and depend for the maintanance and compatibility of the plugins on third persons or companies?
I compete with Yoast. I don’t use it at all!
That’s not the pont I am trying to make thou, its all about developers, are they gonna support/create for Cp.
With the other point, you are very correct,
Majority are similar.
My point is why to depend that much on the individual developers and expect them to support each and every plugin existed on each and every wordpress fork existed. ( not that there are so many but by the time that it is in open source it is not something impossible).
The point of making a fork is to make something different. Why stick with the source material and not develop it further?
WP has the design weaknesses that all older cms have. It started like a blogging platform, then there was demand for something more and then it was added that something more ( whatever that was) that created the need to correct something else that might didn’t work and this goes on for more than a decade!! All these make it a cms that misses very basic features no matter if now has a super duper editor! ha ha haaaaaaaaa
The gallery still needs at least three plugins to work decently. The basics are not there.
CP has to bevome different. That is my point.
What you don’t consider is our devs are volunteers, the line of development has been set (and your suggestions are inline with the general community idea of development)… But this change takes time to perform. It’s not that you take media library code out of core, change it and put it back in overnight! It takes months of efforts!
Also there is an experimental line of development for media library already, as there is one for woocommerce. Fact is the community could benefit from more devs engaging and contributing.
That is why trying to attract plugin/theme devs is a good move. Basically those devs are the ones who most likely will contribute to core.
It’s not that CP is not making changes, it’s we need time and more devs to reach the goal faster.
WooCommerce is the most common plugin my clients use. Depending on their gateway, I need plug-ins for either authorize.net, paypal etc, as well as various other plug-ins that make it possible to run an online store.
Until there is a Woocommerce like plugin with all the add on plugins I need, I can’t move my clients even if I wanted to. I know a fork was talked about but that takes serious time for a fork to be developed let alone the addons for it.
I don’t trust the current version of Woocommerce to continue working with 4.9 let alone the addons for it.
Once CP has matured and I can actually tell a client there is a solid replacement, then I’m onboard which is why I check back in here every now and then to see the progress.
For my own peace of mind, I need to see a much higher adoption rate before I jump on board.
I’m rooting for Classic Press, I"m just not ready to bet the farm on it yet.
Yes, I agree. If CP is going to become the business-focused alternative then it must have an e-commerce solution that is 100% reliable. To me that, and a good SEO solution, are the primary business necessities.
This is all very interesting and is why I created the poll on current CP usage/uptake. I confess to sitting on the fence at the moment. For lots of reasons (not just Gutenberg), I am very reluctant to stay with WP but, at the same time, I can’t bring myself to commit to CP. And, with around 30 sites to manage, I know, that I’ve got to make a decision one way or another very soon otherwise I’ll be left with a big mess.
As @ElisabettaCarrara said, the CP devs are all volunteers with other jobs. I honestly don’t know how they find the time but I have the utmost of respect for them . Without them, we wouldn’t even be having this discussion. Even so, this for me remains one of the reasons why I am reluctant to commit. And as @azimpact says, I’d also like to see a much higher adoption rate – another key factor.
Getting plugin developers on boards is essential too – but which ones? As @Marialena.S says, WP / CP needs a decent media gallery. To date, where necessary, I’ve had to resort to using a paid plugin – one of the most widely used ones with both free and premium versions. But this plugin is so symptomatic of everything that is wrong with WP – huge bloat and badly written code everywhere.
As an example, I had an album page with 22 galleries and a total of 5500 images in all 22 galleries. The album page, even though it consisted of nothing more than 22 small, optimised thumbnails, came to a massive 23MB (uncompressed). Google PageSpeed and, more worryingly, Google Search Console, both crashed when trying to crawl that page. Having studied the source code, I noticed that each gallery element had data attributes containing around 4KB of JSON data for every single image in that gallery. Very sloppy and lazy coding and definitely not something I’d want to see in CP.
Anyway, I don’t mean to be negative. You have no idea how much I want CP to succeed, and I would be the happiest little bunny 
on earth if I could finally dump WP. But I guess I just need a little more convincing that CP is going to work out.