WordPress Web Application
The popularity of WordPress as a Blog or Content Management platform is easy to explain: regular updates, incredible support forum, rich documentation and a very large community.
However, did you know that it can also act as a full framework for web applications?
I’ve looked into the features that WP provides to function as a web development framework and found it to be a compelling alternative. Read on and let me know what you think in the comments.
Support System
WordPress has an amazing support system. If you encounter issues with installation, development or setting up, there is an active support community that will help you to resolve it promptly. And with access to WordPress Codex, a community moderated wiki, all the information you need is just a click of the mouse away.
Straightforward
WordPress offers a an admin panel with all the option you could think of. It makes managing your front end content easy while also allowing you to create custom setting pages. This is one of the reasons that makes WP such an attractive alternative to other frameworks such as Symfony or Yii.
User Management
The functionality of WordPress is enhanced through an excellent user management module. It takes care of user registration and login, user role management, creating new roles and assigning capabilities to different roles. With available plugins such as a capability manager, you no longer have to worry about security issues or session management.
Media Management
WordPress provides an integrated media library. You can upload your media as well as crop it, flip it, and resize it, among other options. The image functions allow you to upload images to the front end while keeping modification flexibility on the back end. Symfony and Yii also offer this but neither one is as complete as WP.
The CRUD (Create Read Update Delete)
WordPress makes creating, reading, uploading and deleting content easy.While it may not be as sophisticated as Yii, it excels in allowing you to start up quickly, giving you the time you need to focus on the business aspects.
Stretch and Scale
The ability to extend and modify your site is a very important aspect of any framework. WordPress gives you this ability through its Hooks and Filters tools. With Filters, you can change the output of a default function by passing it through a custom filter. Meanwhile, Hooks lets you custom function custom calls at set points within the WordPress code execution chain. These valuable and powerful tools are an attractive option for many companies.
Writing the URL
WordPress has a Permalink function where you can have distinct types of permalinks for content or pages. This is very important if you are looking to build a website or application with news content. Being able to modify the structure of the URL plays a big role in SEO. WordPress provides you with a very user friendly Rewrite API. This allows you to modify the URL structure and customize it to your requirements. There are other frameworks that support URL routing, such as Laravel, Yii, Zend, CakePHP and other, but none make it as easy as WP.
Presentation
WordPress exhibits your content through its templates. You can assign multiple templates to one page, allowing you to have different styles for the same content.
Cache Considerations
WordPress provides database level caching in your application through a built in Transient API. This is a must have if you are contemplating high performance applications for users in the millions. Granted, other frameworks such as Yoo and Laravel also have this, so this may not be a deciding factor for you.
The Decision
I believe that WordPress is a suitable alternative for your website framework. It has a suite of attractive features which also make for low overhead. In the end, however, the decision is yours.
What do you think?
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