Wordpress vs Laravel

Hi everybody! I've just finished my registration. I was waiting to have a more solid site before signing up and asking for feedback but what racks my brains is right what the title of this thread suggests.

I love gambling world, I was a bettor for a long time with Betfair and then Betdaq (exchange + horse racing). But also I'm good at coding and Laravel is my preferred way to build sites. March 2016 was when I came across GPWA and the whole gambling affiliate world and then I was decided to go this way.

I had already several deployed sites (sport) but switching for some reason to a new project I was closing the previous one. Now as a newbie I've found that working with casinos is easier and I'm in love with them, for sure I'll stick to this niche.

Making a website from scratch is my pleasure that is why I never liked CMS, but at some point I realized that diving into coding doesn't allow me to focus on business. With Laravel I can build a cool authentic website but there are too many technical aspects that you need to care about and this takes time.

For the reason above mentioned and because of SEO aspects, as I'm still week with SEO, I'm trying now Wordpress. It's amazing how easily is to manage a Wordpress site, especially if you're good at coding, at the same time you can easily concentrate yourself on business.

I'm not sure yet if I should stick to Wordpress and start working on content or get back to MVC framework, spend some time on coding and have in change a more secured website.

Any opinion on this? What do you think about a site's success and the platform it was built on? Any recommendation for a novice.

I'm very glad to be here and thank you all!

Wordpress is very easy to work with, but do spend some time to increase the security as a lot of plugins and themes have "holes" for hackers. All my projects are on Wordpress and I love it, maybe because I am not so good at coding :D

Your job as a developer is to choose the right tool for a task.

If you're building a content site with lots of articles, then you choose Wordpress and don't waste time on coding the same stuff yourself. Same if you're building an ecommerce site because you do want to take advantage of Woocommerce, payment plugins, etc.

But if you need custom stuff then it's easier to use PHP or a framework such as Laravel or CI if that's your thing. Though you might want to use Bootstrap and/or LESS or Sass to speed things up.

Even Joomla could be the right choice sometimes. Or Drupal, a bit more often.

There are also hybrid sites, e.g. a Laravel site that has a section done in Wordpress to benefit from the membership system. Or vice versa, a Wordpress site with custom coding or even a more radical job on the Wordpress core. Because Wordpress is actually so simple and well organized that you can hack into it and make it work for you. It doesn't even have to appear on the front end, you can use Wordpress back end only as a base for your site whose front end is all Laravel.

Generally you do NOT design complex systems unless you're doing it for multiple users. Example: a Wordpress theme which you'll resell. Example 2: You don't invent and build Bootstrap yourself, you do it only if you're doing it for thousands of customers.

I think you'll switch to Wordpress for most tasks. Especially because you got the skills to make it do what you want.

Thanks for your reply MrBinaryAff. I remember your site, maybe you have there a thread kinda 'review my website'.

I appreciate your response DanHorvat! You have just given some good hints to me. Thanks a lot!

I love wordpress and can't imagine myself using anything else. It has so many features, plugins, etc

I must agree with you. I always neglected Wordpress and similar stuff but since I'm working to set up an online business I understand how precious is the time and not only, the wordpress plugins can be very useful even if you aren't using wordpress. Although I love coding I've come to this: "Less coding more business".

Yes, exactly like Dan wrote:

1. If you're building a content site with lots of articles, then you choose Wordpress and don't waste time on coding the same stuff yourself.
If u want to create some content (articles, easy tables..), go for WP and focus on content

2. But if you need custom stuff then it's easier to use PHP or a framework such as Laravel or CI if that's your thing.
If u'd like to make complex comparsion tables, app or something more difficult, go for your own solution..

I am using wordpress. But from my point of view, the better is using CMS that your like more.

If your a novice and not an expert art coding id stay with wordpress. I love wordpress and how easy and intuitive it is.

Damn! You absolutely right! You wrote exactly the conclusion I've come to 3 days before you posted. After playing 2 weeks with Wordpress I came back to Laravel because I like to interact with databases and create apps within the website without 3rd party plugins. It's important to do things the way you can do it better, the way you love, though it'll take more time, thus your final product will be a reflection of yourself.

Nevertheless I got some good stuff from Wordpress especially regarding SEO aspects that were my downsides. Wordpress is really good but not really for those who are app-oriented. Neatness in long-terrm will be rewarding.