In the logs of my web server I see again and again access attempts to /wp-admin, the path WordPress uses for its administration. Whoever tries to log in to the site with wp-admin: You can forget it: This site doesn't use WordPress at all!

The history of this site

Why I don't use WordPress has a bit to do with the history of this site, I guess I have to elaborate a little. This site and its domain exist since 2003, so longer than the initial release of WordPress.

My very first website in 2003 was built with static HTML files and iFrames. Later I tried my hand at PHP programming and in 2005 I wrote my own CMS: cms.libe.net. The reason was that I have not found a usable ready-made system on the market, so I tried to write a CMS by myself. The result worked, but it was not very extensible, difficult to use, and the source code was full of beginner's mistakes. Unlike the classic blogs of the time, I always had a certain menu structure on the page and still rejuvenate old articles now and then by revising them. At that time Joomla was the most likely to meet my requirements and after some time I got along relatively well with the operation and at that time I also recommended Joomla to others. My conclusion at that time was, that Joomla was in no way suitable for senior citizens. For my terms, the operation was at that time also much too cumbersome.

Somewhat disappointed by the systems available at the time, I completely rewrote a second version of cms.libe.net from 2011. The result, called LiBe CMS, can still be found today at cms.libe.net and is in use on some websites. Since I am not a skilled programmer and I more or less tried around until everything worked according to my ideas, the source code of LiBe CMS reflects my state of knowledge from 2011. The system is not necessarily bad, for example it is really easy to use, incredibly small, has a self-update feature, needs very little memory, no database and is and arrow fast. Thanks to my poor programming skills at the time, it doesn't use any new PHP features, so it's compatible with all sorts of PHP versions. Since the admin interface is purely password protected, the limits of the system are reached when it comes to logging in multiple users or assigning different permissions. In addition, I tried to visit certain other websites automatically at that time and to monitor version numbers of software programs automatically as an example. At this point I outdid myself and wrote an unpublished add-on to LiBe CMS that was de facto unmaintainable.

At that point WordPress would have been a valid option for sure and besides the available CMS systems I also looked around the market regarding web frameworks and somehow got stuck with Laravel. The topic of programming not yet completely discarded, I wanted to expand my knowledge and have therefore tried from 2016 to understand Laravel closer and be able to use. Whoever deals with Laravel, must inevitably deal with its substructure and can learn a lot about how a project can be built as modular and sustainable maintainable: At least that was the case for me. Besides Composer, NPM and Vue.js I tried GIT for versioning for the first time. At first, I didn't even plan to replace LiBe CMS, but later I started to think about how I would build a CMS with Laravel. Finally, my third CMS emerged from these considerations: And, this site and my second site www.script-example.com use Laravel as their underpinnings since 2020.

New website: Just use WordPress

To summarize, I can recommend WordPress for all those who can't program or don't want to learn, or simply don't want to invest the time. If the requirements for the site are mainstream, there is nothing to be said against a ready-made, tried-and-tested system like WordPress. However, the advantage of an in-house system compared to WordPress is that additional functions can be implemented without the need for ready-made paid plugins.

For running on your own server, see also WordPress in Docker incl. HTTPS Let’s Encrypt setup