@tjrobertson52

Cloudflare just released a platform that could completely replace WordPress. It's called EmDash, and there's still a lot we don't know, but at first glance to me it just seems like better WordPress. So I just want to explain why I'm so excited and why my agency is jumping headfirst into mdash.

If you don't know, Cloudflare recently acquired the HTML framework Astro. Astro has been incredibly popular with people who are using AI to build websites. It makes it easier for AI to build websites with beautiful front end design.

Now, we love WordPress. All the websites we've built are on WordPress. Most of our client sites are on WordPress.

But the truth is, it really does not play nice with AI. And because of that, website development has remained the one area in our agency where most of the work still has to be done by a human.

Now, since Cloudflare acquired Astro, we've been speculating that Cloudflare would probably come out some kind of platform that disrupts WordPress. I didn't expect it to happen this soon, and I didn't expect them to literally call it the spiritual successor to WordPress, but it really is.

It's already available as a beta for developers. You can install it and use it right now. You can easily set it up on a Cloudflare server.

Of course, but they have a generous free tier, and once you log in, you'll see it looks exactly like WordPress, except without all the plugins and themes and page builders you're used to.

And a lot of people in the WordPress community are saying this is why it's gonna fail. It won't be able to compete with WordPress because it doesn't have the community that WordPress has. And it's true.

Most of the value in WordPress is all the plugins and themes and developers who are familiar with the platform.

But I really don't think that's gonna be enough to keep EmDash or a similar platform from disrupting WordPress. And I'll explain why. But first, let's talk about how EmDash is better.

It's far more secure. It solves the primary security issues that WordPress has with plugins and themes. Every plugin has strict permission settings, and themes are unable to edit the main database.

They've also made a handful of improvements to performance.

I recommend reading their entire article. But the thing I'm most excited about by far is their integration with AI. They already have an MCP and CLI for mdash, so you can develop, update, and maintain the website directly from cloud or your favorite platform.

It is hard to overstate how much this will unlock in terms of letting AI help with website development.

We're already starting to build websites with EmDash, and I'll have more videos sharing what we're learning as we integrate AI into our processes.

What about all the plugins and themes and page builders on WordPress? Well, if it isn't already obvious? Software like this is so easy to build with AI now.

Cloudflare has done a lot to make it easier for developers to build on mdash. So mdash doesn't need a community that rivals WordPress to compete. It just needs a handful of really savvy developers.