Wordpress as a CMS - WPRemix Review and WPRemix Site Example
I have been creating sites for some time, and in particular blogs. It is no mystery that I am a huge fan of Wordpress. I have heard of people using it as a CMS because of the ease of creating new pages and the ability to set the homepage to a static page. I decided to investigate Wordpress as a CMS and invested in purchasing WP Remix.
Before I jump into the review I just want to be clear about a few things. I have used Typepad, Joomla, Drupal, and Open CMS as content management systems in the past. In addition, my link to WPRemix do have affiliate code attached to it, but that does not mean my review is biased. If you find my review useful and decide to purchase it there is no reason why I should not get part of the share for contributing this review.
UPDATE: I just launched a new site called Wordpress CMS Blog where I posted a WP Remix 2 Video Review
Design Templates I have to admit the thing that drew me to WPRemix were the stunning template layouts. To be clear these were not themes. If you want to create good looking websites you have to know CSS and some HTML. None the less the layouts look great with nice layouts. There are 6 homepage layouts, over 10 content pages including about, event pages, about pages, contact, etc etc.
CMS Capability - Unfortunately I would not call WPRemix a content management system. It is more like a theme on roids. If you are not comfortable working with HTML and PHP you will not be able to update content with ease. What it is good for is creating sleek websites using wordpress.
SEO - The theme is SEO friendly, but like with any theme I recommend adding SEO Plugins to cater to your SEO needs.
Learning Curve - Like most new things there is a slight learning curve. For example I did not realize that if you want to create multiple sub pages with the same layout you have to copy the file and rename it in the php field. The one thing I did notice is that the support was fantastic. Within 12 hours I always got a thorough response on my question.
Now you might be wondering what is the site I built using WPRemix ? Well recently I decided to start a site about Absinthe since now it is legal in the United States.
Below you can find a screen shot of the site. I used stock images, CSS edits, and the copy was provided to me by a copywriter. It took me about 20 to 30 hours but that was because I kept messing up and got stuck in a few areas. I think the next site can be built in half the time, and after that the goal is 5 hours per site.
Click Image to Enlarge
In summary I just want to say be careful when you think of Wordpress as a CMS. WPRemix is a great tool in creating a website, but it not a true CMS. It is also not easy to scale if you need to create full sized sites.
If you have any other wordpress cms tools please post links or give back feedback.
UPDATE: WPRemix 2 has just been released and the features are amazing. I have been messing around with it for a past few days and now I can call WPRemix 2 a true Wordpress CMS. You can check it out here.
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Comments
I use WP for my personal site but thinking of using WPREMIX. But still don’t what is the different?. I email them for 2 days but still don’t get the answer.
@ Small Business Web Design
The advantage of WPRemix is that it has tons of different page layouts. This allows you to generate pages quickly using Wordpress. The drawback is it is not a “true” CMS and can’t be scaled to hundreds of pages.
For the price it is absolutely worth it if you want to spice up your site.
Thank you, I already bought and try it on my server. Still have few more question ask.
As you mentioned that it is not TRUE CMS, so that means I can’t edit my content through WP admin by using WP HTML editor??
Also if I want to have the same layout for my 2 sub page, I have to change the template file name ?? For example, “tpl_sub1.php” to “something.php”
Please let me know if I am correct
It is not a CMS in that you have to go into Presentation to pick the file and change things. You also cannot use your WYSIWYG to edit pages.
That is correct you have to change your template file name. A tip I found is to create the files in Dreamweaver and change the name in PHP header of each file then FTP them back into the folder.
Good Luck
The first version was not a CMS. The main reason was you could not use the same template for more than one page. You had to copy the file and FTP it. There were many issues with WPRemix, but I am happy to inform I was part of the beta testers for WPRemix 2 and it is 10 times better and has features which I have never seen before.
You can check out WPRemix 2 here.
the new wpremix2 sucks just as it sucked before.
it uses multiple css making it annoying to edit.
if you try to edit any single template you must edit multiple files in order to get it right along with html, sure its great if your going to just use the current design but if your going to change it (example stretch out the header and width) good luck.
my recommendation save your money and just get revolution theme(much better, easier to edit.)
I have not tried revolution theme yet. I am going to see if I can get my hands on a demo and will post my review on Wordpress CMS blog
I am sorry for the earlier post. I got to communicate with the remix owner and understood the whole difference. I ‘thought’ wpremix is tough to edit and is better than revolution theme. But revolution is easy to edit because it offers merely 1-3 pages means very less css code. wpremix offers way way beyond what revolution and it costs less as well.
the coding is separated to maintain clarity between the mass templates. overall, I am happy now once I understood the difference.
The coding is good for AS IS only.
It’s extremely difficult to extend WPREMIX 2.0 theme.
The issue is, that if you add in the typical plugins that developers develop, they do not work on the WPREMIX 2 theme.
Also, after reviewing people asking for support regarding these themes, there really has been no support given to fixing the problem. So, this theme is only really good for developers who seek to take the time to customize it or extend it. It is NOT good for people who don’t know how to code, but just want to plug & play plugins (which Wordpress is great for). Its easier to get a custom theme made vs. sspending the time to customize a theme to the way you need it, because of the limitations of wpremix. Think about it, if you want to extend functionality & features of WPRemix theme, think about the cost of the theme & multiply by 10 or 15 times that is what the cost of a developer or coder will want to charge. I wish the WPREMIX developers would fix the issues and allow for the Plugins to work on the theme. It’s obvious that they really didn’t test any of the “popular plugins” they boast while marketing the site.
The more time that is spent dissecting, analyzing, and critiquing a design by the wrong kinds of people the worse that design gets. The same trend applies to the number of people involved in the design process.
Thx a lot for infomation!
I use Wordpress as a CMS to develop my clients’ websites. It is great, but it has a drawback: at a big number of pages, the admin interface becomes really slow, so you need a lot of patience to operate changes. And there’s no possibility to delete multiple pages at once, or at least I haven’t found it.