I haven’t been here in a long time. If you aren’t aware WP Engine and WordPress are having a big battle. Wordpress is now looking to Trademark terms like WordPress Hosting and even Managed WordPress. That threatens a lot of agencies and companies. So it got me thinking about how I can come back and even Support ClassicPress as a hosting provider.
We’ve been hosting WordPress and WooCommerce sites since 2015. And we even spun up and tested ClassicPress when it first came out. Should probably build some new sites with CP.
First off we are in a big rebrand. Moving out of web design entirely and moving solely into hosting and managed services. We should have the rebranded site out in October. No reason why we can’t support ClassicPress.
What I seriously want to look into is providing ClassicPress Hosting and Managed ClassicPress Hosting solutions. Not for the server and VPS techies - but for the regular folk and business people who need solid hosting provided for them.
Here is a bit about our services:
Full cPanel hosting with Softaculous (ClassicPress installer)
Scalable servers provisioned with Liquid Web
Fully secured with BitNinja Server Security
Daily Acronis and cPanel offsite backups
No forced WordPress updates (I know this is a big one for ClassicPress)
Free SSL Certificates etc
We use UpdraftPlus as our backup/maintenance solution. I gather it’s still compatible with ClassicPress?
BitNinja is pretty awesome as a WAF, but I already know WordFence isn’t compatible here. Solutions?
We have been following the WP controversy. What you are suggesting sounds like a great idea to me!
I’d also like to emphasize that ClassicPress is no longer just WP without blocks. Version 2.2 has vastly superior media management compared to WP, for example, with more to come in v2.3 next year.
We also have much better security as we use bcrypt as our password hashing algorithm, and we also provide a plugin to make use of a new pepper mechanism to add yet greater security.
CP also works properly on touchscreens, which WP does not (e.g. with widgets, menus, and metaboxes) and is also significantly more accessible.
Oh, and CP has a codebase around just half the size of WP and runs much faster.
Hi Tim, good to hear from you! You don’t have to convince me - I always liked the idea of ClassicPress and it always ran faster. We have a code snippet we add to all our sites now to completely block Gutenberg.
The BitNinja Server Security we have really secures things. But I’d still encourage clients to have some kind of security software at their site level.
If there’s anything specific you would like to see us do, please let us know. Development this year has been pretty significant, and we’d like to keep that momentum going.
I think the main issue, would be to make sure WP Core updates are completely blocked on CP installs - some kind of file at the site root or even in the config file. We don’t force WP updates, but sometimes those updates can go through.
“I’m a big fan of ClassicPress and believe in its potential. How can I best support the project? Are there any specific areas where I can contribute, such as development, testing, or community building?”
You can always donate to support the project. I am working to develop a new CP Hosting and it’ll be based on cloud technology and hope it will be ready in month or two. I am open for partnership and collaboration as well.
But we could also do with more testers. If you install and activate the ClassicPress Migration plugin from How to Install ClassicPress CMS | Download ClassicPress, you can then go to Tools -> Switch to ClassicPress and click the Show Advanced Version Control button to expose a Build URL field.
You can then enter a URL like https://github.com/ClassyBot/ClassicPress-v2-nightly/archive/refs/tags/2.2.0+nightly.20240930.zip and hit the Perform Custom Migration now button. You will then get that nightly test version installed, and you’ll also be told automatically when a new nightly is available (which it is every day).
