Conclusion

As this was written as a blog over the last several days, it will only make sense if the posts are read from the bottom up. But, you are encouraged to read the conclusion here before proceeding (to see if it is worth the read).

I started this blog with the following sentence:

I, as others that I know, have been struggling to figure out a good solution for handling user-managed content embedded in a MEAN (MongoDB, Express, AngularJS, and Node.js) stack application.

What I did not elaborate on was criteria for a good solution:

• Community Support:  Expected to be maintained over time.
• Widespread Use: Has name-brand recognition in its category.
• Functional: Provides sufficient functionality for user-managed content.
• Ease-of- Use (User): Easy for users to use.
• Ease-of-Use (Developer): Ease for me to use.
• Ease-of-Use (Operations): Easy for operations to support.
• Scaleability: Can be scaled.
• Cost: Low cost.

Let me preface the conclusion below with:

• I am not advocating WordPress as a development platform; just as the CMS component. 
• I strongly prefer the MEAN stack as a development platform.
• I do not prefer the PHP language (but stop short as I know that others say the same thing about JavaScript).
• Like one of the founding fathers (David Clark) said, I believe in: "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code."  That is why I have this longish blog with actual running code demonstrated below.

Why I Am Leaning Towards WordPress as a Solution for a CMS Component

A part of me cringes at the thought of what I am about to advocate; i.e., a month ago I was pretty firmly against this conclusion.

• Community Support: WordPress is an open source project with hundreds of people working on it. It has been existence since 2003 (12 years).*
• Widespread Use: 22% of new U.S. registered domains run on WordPress.**
• Functional: WordPress has become synonymous with the term CMS; essentially defining the software category.
• Ease-of-Use (User): There is a reason why 22% of new U.S. registered domains run on WordPress.
• Ease-of-Use (Developer): With the right guidance (will not name the guilty), one can quickly cut through the tangle of themes and plug-ins and create highly customized user-content driven sites. I will use me as proof (3 days ago, I had not touched PHP or WordPress and now I feel confident that I could build such a site quickly).
• Ease-of-Use (Operations): WordPress platform as a service (PaaS) has become a commodity item with lots of options available, e.g., https://www.siteground.com/ or https://pagely.com.
  
  note: Because, I am advocating only using WordPress as a CMS component, this solution has a limited number of plug-in in use and the theme is bare bones.  Plug-in and theme (and core upgrades) represent a significant problem.
•  Scaleability: This is an area that I am less comfortable but with some big companies using it, e.g., Best Buy***, and companies like Pagely that specialize in performance I feel more comfortable.
• Cost: While one can host this software oneself (it is open source), Pagely offers a range of solutions that start off at only $64 / month and can be scaled up as necessary.

Love to hear your feedback as I am very interested in alternative solutions.

* https://wordpress.org/about/

** https://managewp.com/14-surprising-statistics-about-wordpress-usage

*** https://wordpress.org/showcase/best-buy/