My experience with WP and attacks is what drove me to Rapidweaver.
And, like the man said, you can make MORE money working on WP because they’re always needing more work. I know loads of people who do nothing but WP upkeep for a good living.
Rapidweaver just works (better).
I like both. RW is very flexible and the new version is really good. Good stuff. For Wordpress , that’s another thing. In fact you have to work with it for a few years with lots of trial & errors. I did and my conclusion is that there are only a few pagebuilders where you can make wonderful websites without the code being super complex so it messes up your websites. The builders -> Divi and X-Theme. They are very clean and you can built whatever you want with it. As for the security it’s the same ting -> you have to know what to do. For now, I have “Shield” plugin all in one protecting all of my sites. It free and easy to implement. It has all the security option that I want and it’s doing his job. I also got a real time backup system (from backupbuddy) that takes backups and send them to a cloud hosting so I can do a “1 click reset” of the backup of my choice (1 backup a day).
So for me, RW and WP are 2 different worlds. RW is great for small an bigger projects but not for datadriven complex relations. WP is perfect for both IF (big if) you work with a builder (divi or x theme) that has it all so you don’t have to install 100 extra plugins , a good protection plugin (like shield) and a real time backup system (daily).
@robbeattie can you expand on why you think the WP is a dog’s backside?
I think the back end is incredibly confusing.
Do you use WP’s built-in features or the page-builder that comes with many modern themes? Are you creating a page? Is it a post? Where are the settings that change this or that? It just seems all over the place. I’ve just had a client come to me having wasted about three months on a cheap WP hosting package which included the theme and minimal setup and he’s exhausted trying to make anything work.
I tried to like WordPress and built a personal site with it because I wanted to offer it as an alternative to RW to customers but I’ve given up.
For the level of work I do and the kind of client I get, RW with one of the CMS offerings or Armadillo for self-hosted blogs and a bit of Paypal-style cartery is more than enough. If they need something more complicated then I’ll approach one of the devs for a custom stack or pass them onto someone else who can help them to use a different platform. But - hopefully - I’ll never have to use WordPress again.
Just my personal view, of course. It obvious works for millions of websites.
Rob
A few questions regarding this very interesting discussion:
What does it mean if a site is infected? What are the implications?
Does the infection occur only if the site is actually hosted on Wordpress? Or might the same problems arise if one were, for instance, to use Wordpress as a blog on a site that is otherwise pure RW?
I do not want or need CMS, but would love a relatively simple solution for the demise of the Workman Tumblr situation.
Thanks.
Hi Rob
5 years ago I would said “yes, you are right”, but now it’s very different. If you use WP on a professional basis “personal blogging” has no point anymore. WP needs a good framework with build-in drag & drop, then you can create almost everything.
My professional setup is:
That’s it. I don’t even use posts anymore except if my client wants a blog/news page.
RW and WP are 2 worlds apart. Don’t make big complex websites with RW, it’s too risky. But for small to medium websites it’s a great tool.
My clients do need an easy solution for editing content. I know they don’t love their own sites because of using WP with the confusing back end. And they LOVE how easy it is with the custom built back-end for their needs. I don’t have to give them all possibilities the system has. I can give them the tools they really need. Because of this, RW and Total CMS are my tools.
Well, that’s my point exactly -> small & mid projects are good to work with RW. The clients wants the site to work and not be bothered with technical details. This is a “no-go” for big companies. They want often full control over the website (backend/frontend). The budgets are mostly much higher too (between 7500 to 25000 euro / website). I said it before, 2 worlds apart and they do a great job on it’s own 
@swilliam I wonder where Rapidweaver would come in that list?
This is all really useful information, thanks everyone
It’s classic WordPress though @gille. Looks great. Makes me want to buy it and have another go, but I just know that I’ll find it horrible. 
Also, I can’t find out how much it costs.
I think that had a discovered web building in my 30s instead of my 50s, I’d be all over WP but now, I don’t think I can be bothered to learn something new. It’s hard enough keeping up with RW at my age…
Rob
Can you explain more please…How do you define “small to medium”? And can you expand on “it’s too ricsky.” - What about breaking large sites up into smaller projects? I have a site that is currently in five projects and it’s fairly easy to grow and maintain but sometimes special thought needs to be given. ie: More tools outside of RW are used… (sitemaps, link checkers, site search, etc) I would love to consider something else for this site but I see no way it could be “converted” at this point. It’s consists of 1564 html/php pages and I seem to be locked into RW at this point. I used Dreamweaver in the past but that was many years and many projects ago… Interesting conversation!
Just MO,
It’s pretty hard to hack a RW site that doesn’t have a database. Assuming the host has the servers secure.
RW isn’t exactly a large target. - Hackers tend to go for “low hanging fruit” if they can attack thousands of sites with the same hack/vulnerability, that’s what they tend to do instead of trying to hack one site at a time.
Can we assume that WIX is pretty much in the same category as Wordpress?
These are all CMS systems.
If you do not have a CMS system, a web site generated by RapidWeaver is more or less static.
You would have to compare the different CMS systems, which you can use inside RapidWeaver, regarding security flaws.
Hi Rob. No you’re not old I got very much respect for you and your RW projects. Got some really nice one in your collection. To get back to WP, I really recommend DIVI and the blank framework. The cost is here: https://www.elegantthemes.com/join/ , to be honest… if you buy the lifetime access you get everything forever and you can’t beat that
Hi Greg.
Small to medium is in my opinion 1 to 50 people companies. Big companies has many rules to follow so their budget is very strict and it must “win itself back” in a short time. What do you mean a site in 5 parts? Can you explain? The less tools you use externally , the better. DIVI framework has it all (many modules, drag & drop builder, templates, global modules, history function and seo). But if you have all your pages in html/php I don’t see an easy conversion to WP. It will be copy / past for the most part. But why so many pages? Are you displaying product etc? The WP could make a filtering system so that your product will be generated with an auto url.
No, WIX is an online platform with his own hosting (and so url). WP can be installed on your own hosting or on a wordpress hosting. You also got every flexibility because it’s open source.
Ha… I see… so you were talking company size and I was talking RW project size… I work for a missionary/writer and writes like crazy. We do an opt-in mailing each day and this “report” becomes a “report” on the website. He’s been doing this for years so there is a lot of content. There is also a store (books, videos, powerpoints) plus we’ve done over 75 free ebooks and videos. By “a site in five parts” I mean just that. The one site is made up of five separate project files. I should have explained up front that I alone maintain the site so there is no CMS, etc. So I guess you could say the “company” is pretty small. Me and the owner/writer/missionary.
