Reasons to Switch from WordPress to Chyrp +

I could list many reasons why I have switched from WordPress to another platform, but the biggest annoyances were following:

Principal reasons.

The mix Automattic/WordPress confuses me. Although the whole wordpress.com platform, as marvelous as it is, totally falls within the GPL principles, I think a huge greyzone has grown around the business side of developing WordPress(.org). It is clear that every code change made to the WordPress(.org) change can directly be used by the Automattic team for their wordpress.com platform. Automattic themselves, maintain a stranglehold on the plugins and themes directory, with Matt Mullenweg actively demanding that everything is released under the GPL License.

WordPress has outgrown me.

WordPress is a solid platform and certainly has become very flexible and rather extensive. With a little of WordPress knowledge, you can build platforms as big and customized as you want. No limits are set, even not the sky. Suffice to visit All Things D to admire how customizable the platform is. All I want here is a blog.

The WordPress Community has become a jungle

The large and active developing base of the WordPress community at the same time is the epitome of the same community. With daily new theme and plugin releases it has become increasingly hard to find the best plugins and themes for one’s need.
Sadly community also means that people come and leave and many great themes and plugins are not further developed, updated for actual WordPress versions anymore.

WordPress phones home

With the release of WordPress 2.3 a new feature was implemented. WordPress now checks the version with the WP directory and also checks if an update for plugins at the WordPress.org plugin directory available is. No matter how noble and needed it might be to alert users that a security release available is, it would be lovely if there were the option to opt-out. Could those calls also be used by Automattic to increase their own statistics?
Already before this release, the default WordPress themes all come with a built in security treat: in the header the version of the installation is displayed, allowing any hacker immediately know if security exploits for that installed version known are.

How do things proceed from here on?

When I discovered Chyrp some weeks ago, it seemed a God send. ver the last year I had been playing with numerous blogging platforms and although every single one had his charme, none could really make me switch. If I had to switch, my vote would go to Expression Engine. A mature, fast and flexible platform, but the lean code of EE also is way to extensive for my needs on this site.

Chyrp promises more though, more with less.
Chyrp, which markets itself as a very lightweight platform seems to exactly fulfill my needs, my simple needs: a slimline platform, easily customizable with only few SQL-queries.

And I think the biggest charme of Chyrp IMHO is not it’s small footprint or the thrown in AJAX, allowing inline editing and some more, but the way it’s built and how Chyrp can be extended with feathers and modules.

Hopefully Chyrp will stay a true blogging engine and not become a CMS as most platforms did with time.

Note about Cutline

I will port the Cutline theme to Chyrp over the next weeks.