Is ClassicPress for me?

General Discussion
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Mod Edit: Split from Maintenance Mode v1.0.0 released topic.

@AzureCurve: It is great to have a person like you, who is willing to help. And is good that there is a different setup than Wordpress. But my problem is lack of knowledge to build a new website and I know nothing about coding. I followed Classicpress for months. As I have mentioned a couple of month ago, I have just one personnel website. I have learned it from a webmaster and able to continue from there. At the meantime the Genesis Theme my site is build on, is outdated and I have to find another theme. The webmaster/webinar teacher is willing to help me to switchover to a new Wordpress Theme. He also believed in Gutenberg and he told me that it is not hard to switch over. Beside that my single site is under attack by hackers and Wordfence does protects me. I am thinking to switch over to a theme from Rough Pixels. Their themes are good for Wordpress as well as Classicpress. And before I forget, my web is just a family blog of articles about world war 2 in Asia and the period after that. Beside that I spend also a lot of time with old and historical pictures. Just edit and clean them up. I wonder if Classicpress is the option for me or follows the webinar teacher.

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Hello @RGe,

I’m not too sure from your comment whether you’re using ClassicPress or still using WordPress but the beauty of ClassicPress is that no one needs to know anything about coding to be able to create great websites.

Regarding outdated themes, normally I would recommend updating to the latest version. However, sometimes it’s not feasible to update and this is generally OK. As long as there are no known vulnerabilities or bugs in the version you’re using, then you should be good to stick with that version. I use older versions of themes on several of my websites.

Many people do like working with the Gutenberg block editor and that’s perfectly fine. However, a lot of people have found it awkward and difficult / impossible to get used to. That’s why the Classic Editor plugin for WordPress still has 5+ million installs (WP stop counting at 5 million for some reason).

If you spend most of your time writing, then I would argue that Gutenberg has little to offer you and is even likely to create obstacles where none exist at present. But it’s really all down to personal preference and that’s a decision that only you can make. Before making the switch, you might want to ask your webmaster if they can set up a test site so that you can try things out.

All websites come under attack unfortunately so I would try not to be too alarmed by what Wordfence is showing you. Wordfence is a great product and it does also work well on ClassicPress (with one or two small caveats) but there is an alternative called Shield Security which is fully CP compatible. Many of us here are using it. But good basic security such as reputable hosting, disable xml-rpc, strong passwords, regular backups, etc. is just as important.

It’s difficult to know what else to advise. All I would say is that if you are currently using WP and you intend to carry on using WP, then at some point you will have no choice but to use the block editor. However, if you use CP, then that’s not something you ever need to be concerned with.

We’re always around to offer help and advice but only you can make the decision :slight_smile:

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I found Gutenberg difficult to use as it caused posts to display differently than intended and much harder to make any changes to a post which is why I changed to ClassicPress.

CP is based off WordPress 4.9 which meant I could continue working as I always had.

Migrating from WP to CP is easy to do with the migration plugin, but you’d need to discuss that with the person who helps you with your site if this is the path you opt to take.

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Hello @RGe,

I’m not too sure from your comment whether you’re using ClassicPress or still using WordPress but the beauty of ClassicPress is that no one needs to know anything about coding to be able to create great websites. @I am still using Wordpress.org with the Classic Plugin. No coding needed to create great websites? New to me!@

Regarding outdated themes, normally I would recommend updating to the latest version. However, sometimes it’s not feasible to update and this is generally OK. As long as there are no known vulnerabilities or bugs in the version you’re using, then you should be good to stick with that version. I use older versions of themes on several of my websites.
@How do I know about bugs in the version?@

RGe:

He also believed in Gutenberg and he told me that it is not hard to switch over

Many people do like working with the Gutenberg block editor and that’s perfectly fine. However, a lot of people have found it awkward and difficult / impossible to get used to. That’s why the Classic Editor plugin for WordPress still has 5+ million installs (WP stop counting at 5 million for some reason). @I use about 20 different plugins. How do I know that these will work with ClassicPress?@If you spend most of your time writing, then I would argue that Gutenberg has little to offer you and is even likely to create obstacles where none exist at present. @Writing articles, Genealogies, Special Indonesian recipes and many pictures, edited with Foo galleries? @

But it’s really all down to personal preference and that’s a decision that only you can make. Before making the switch, you might want to ask your webmaster if they can set up a test site so that you can try things out. @ He gave me many articles about Gutenberg @

Beside that my single site is under attack by hackers and Wordfence does protects me.

All websites come under attack unfortunately so I would try not to be too alarmed by what Wordfence is showing you. Wordfence is a great product and it does also work well on ClassicPress (with one or two small caveats) but there is an alternative called Shield Security which is fully CP compatible. Many of us here are using it. But good basic security such as reputable hosting, disable xml-rpc, strong passwords, regular backups, etc. is just as important.
@ Hostgator.com, - What is xml-rpc? Backup with backup buddy. I use the paid version of Wordfence. Shield Security is unknown to me.@

It’s difficult to know what else to advise. All I would say is that if you are currently using WP and you intend to carry on using WP, then at some point you will have no choice but to use the block editor. However, if you use CP, then that’s not something you ever need to be concerned with.

We’re always around to offer help and advice but only you can make the decision
@ How do I know that the plugins on CP will all work? And what about the fully outdated “Decore” which works on/with Genesis. Because of the warnings I have already disabled Genesis.@
But thank you for all info and advices.

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Tim Hughes, I thank you for all the good info. I need that.
Ron Geenen

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The best way of finding out the information you need about plugins is by visiting the plugin page on wordpress .org. On there, you’ll see things like the minimum version of WordPress required. If this is 4.9 or below, it will work with CP.

Also look at the release history which is often shown on the Development tab. This shows you what bugs were fixed in each release.

Reading articles about Gutenberg really isn’t the same as using it. You can get an idea of how it works on this demo site The new Gutenberg editing experience – WordPress.org but you’d be better testing it over a few weeks on your own demo site.

Wordfence should work with ClassicPress for a while yet. As long as it still works with WordPress 4.9, it’ll work with CP.

You can read more about xml-rpc here A Complete Guide on xmlrpc.php in WordPress (And How to Disable It) if you want but in summary, it is a well-known security liability and it is best disabled. I’m sure your webmaster will be able to help here.

I’m not too familiar with Genesis but my advice would be to contact them.

Just to reiterate, if a plugin or theme works with WordPress 4.9 (and below), then it should work fine with ClassicPress.

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IG, Let we go one step back. You mentioned Shield Security
I just received from (the Paid version) of Wordfence an updated message that my simple Blog MyIndoWorld.com has been attacked 500 times. All base on trying to brake open my password. I have set to access to 5 times. After that they are going to be blocked. Does Shield Security has the same options? I payed Wordfence $99 per year. What is the price tack for Shield Security?
Thank you

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It was @1stepforward who mentioned Shield Security; I’ve never used it, so perhaps he can answer your question on features.

If you only have one site then Shield is $29/year: Shield Security Pro Pricing | Shield Security

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Yes, that option is included. I use and recommend Shield for ClassicPress. Anyway, all the top security plugins do pretty much the same things…the real differences are in the dashboard interface.

However…

A few words of caution regarding security plugins: they are not easy to properly configure, can sometimes break features, and it’s going to take a couple hours to complete the setup. If you’re not comfortable with the (fairly) huge task of switching security plugins (or the many terms/features/issues involved,) your best course of action is to pay your web person to do the work, or just leave it as-is.

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Thank you for the info

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Thank you also for the detailed info and especially words of caution. I need that advise. For your info, I just sent Wordfence an email and have asked them about their support when I switch to Classicpress.

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I wouldn’t worry about this too much, as long as you are using a strong password for your accounts then this is not a practical concern.

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Continuation: I just received an answer from Wordfence: A warning for ClassicPress users!

Hi Ronny,

We don’t support ClassicPress so you will need to disable the scan option Scan core files against repository versions for changes otherwise you will get a lot of modified core WordPress file scan results.

Kind regards,
Phil
Customer Support Engineer

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Right. This is what @1stepforward was referring to when he said:

The developer’s response (which has been solicited numerous times) shows that they’re happy it works, but, they have no interest in actually supporting the platform. In that regard, WordFence isn’t even an option (to me) when we do have a security plugin that actively supports the platform. If you want to continue using WordFence, sticking with WordPress is probably the better long-term option.

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