Shhhhh I haven't completely ditched WordPress. I just wanted to make a half-assed click-bait title. I still have a site that uses WordPress but I'm trying to migrate away.
Why move away from WordPress? It's a very popular blogging/CMS platform. It's used by a large percentage of websites/blogs all around the globe. It's easy to set up and build because many hosting platfroms have WordPress baked right in. All it takes is clicking a button and a basic WordPress site magically appears. Choose one theme out of millions or use their defaults. Choose some plugins. Within an hour you have a nice looking website. Crazy, right?
This is fine and dandy if you're not a web developer and want something fast and easy to use. You don't need developer skills to put together a website (though you still need to be web savvy and maybe have some basic coding knowledge). Darn it, you got other things to do.
A web developer may want to use WordPress if he/she is interested in WordPress development. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, a web developer with WordPress skills is someone that is still highly sought after and will be in the near future.
This all doesn't sound bad. It's not. To many millions this is great and it works. It's versitile - it's great for the novice to an experienced, well-seasoned developer.
For me, well, it was too much. I just used it for small personal sites, like my own site, and a blog I never used. I just didn't need a lot of the functionality. I didn't need a database. There. That's it.
Whoah not so fast! Why is it "too much", you may ask? First there's the constant updating to versions of WordPress and worrying it may break my entire site (that dreaded white screen of death). This has to be done because if you don't update, you open your site up to security risks.
Second, plugin fatigue. So many plugins. Either I become a PHP whiz and build my own plugins or I find a plugin for about everything. There's contact form plugins, SEO plugins, carousel plugins, the essential Hello Dolly plugin. This list goes on and on. These are more things to keep updated or you open the door to security risks. Plugins are developed by people from all over. They may break and then you hope they fix it soon. Even worse is if you choose a plugin and the developer abandons it. You won't get help. It won't get fixed. You start with a handfull of plugins and then before you know it you have twenty plugins that need to be maintained.
In the end, I just wanted simplicity. I don't need a CMS. I have a tiny personal site and I use a build system (like Gulp) and do a static site. I can do everything with front-end code and not have to mess with PHP. It's small and lean. I host on Netlify so it's hooked right into my git repo. Pushing to production is a cinch. Netlify also handles my form submissions. Cool! For this blog, I just use Gatsby. Again, just front-end tools to build a blog. I use markdown to write posts.
For me this works and is easy for me to maintain. Would I do this for clients? Probably not. Heck, I would possibly reach out to WordPress or other website builders because I'd like to get it going quickly and I'd need something clients could easily use. Maybe I would look into Netlify CMS or something else. In the end, the tools you choose should work with what you are trying to accomplish.