Framework suggestions for a Marketplace MVP - Should I just use WP?
Hi all!
I'm building a marketplace app (actually I'm getting someone else to build it for the first time) and am looking for a framework suggestion.
Core things I need are
- Fast
- SEO optimised (easy to have fast images, CDN, meta tags, URLs, sitemaps etc.)
- Dynamic front-end and product pages
- Multi-author
- API I can use to publish new content (programmatically in the future)
- A CMS, or just any way for editors to edit the products in there.
A friend helped me design it, and I have all that done.
I originally thought "React" and got quotes for that, but now I'm thinking WordPress. I can migrate it later in a couple of years when it is profitable, if all goes vaguely to plan.
Pros of WP are: I'm really familiar with it, I know it can do well at modest scale (even millions of PVs) if deployed well, and it has everything I need out of the box. Development will be cheaper. I won't lose as much if I sink it.
Cons: I don't want to regret it. What are the other cons??
Consider WebFlow, I'm working on a couple of sites atm using WebFlow, I used WordPress in the past a lot and got frustrated with the limitations.
Thank you so much! This is perfect. I knew of Webflow, but hadn't thought of it for this project. I really want an opportunity to try it out. I even found some Webflow builders to translate the designs into reality.
Best part is I don't need the e-commerce parts as it'll entirely work through referrals!
Thanks for responding, I appreciate it.
+1 to this! It will probably last you a while too, if it's a marketplace. You will need to write a little bit of code to glue together payouts with your UI (Webflow doesn't support that natively), but the one-off purchases part can be handled by Webflow's e-commerce product. Happy to discuss further if you have any questions.
The major con is that people on HN will treat you like a filthy PHP user to be shunned. I'd ignore them, use WP and ship v1. As long as you have a bit of flexibility, it's hard to think of anything that will get a rough v1 finished faster, especially since you know it well.
A minor risk is that it will be hard for you to justify a re-write in a year or two since in the short-term, your incentive will always be to stick with what you have that's already working.
I think I'll use Webflow as suggested above — will give me more latitude for not much more cost. But I appreciate your encouragement to not feel bad for using WP. Some massive 10M+ PV/mo websites are on WP, anyway.