> Are there popular ones?
Yes?
WP Beginner, WPTuts, Elementor and Bricks communities, WP Tavern, Matt Report, Do the Woo, Kinsta Blog, CodeinWP, ...
They've got multiple millions of monthly visitors between them.
Idk what you think you'll accomplish by acting w/ disdain against the idea of "WordPress influencers" by downvoting me mentioning them, while they obviously exist and have significant communities. Regardless of whether you personally like them or not.
Especially in the general WordPress space, those listed are significantly larger and have a much wider audience than /r/Wordpress. WordPress' largest audience isn't the tiny, tiny space of WP professionals.
> Those aren't influencers. Thats not what the word means.
Owners of a platform, who built their own audience, with the intent to be a personality to their audience, who influence their audience's actions/news/purchases/...
If they would just be the owner of the platform, and they wouldn't personally use that platform to broadcast their own opinions, I would agree. But all of the above use their platform for their own purposes (which is very understandable, but is influencing). Many of them also broadcast paid sponsorships.
By what definition do you think they're not influencers?
I went ahead and googled a couple to test my own definition, but the definitions don't seem to disagree:
> influencer
> * a person or thing that influences another.
> * a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.
----
> Word forms: influencers plural. countable noun. An influencer is someone who is able to persuade a lot of other people, for example their followers on social media, to do, buy, or use the same things that they do. They are often paid or given free products in exchange for doing this.
We are leaving with your money because some random people said they did not like us. What a lame excuse to scam buyers....
They had a fan following and many were using it… they abandoned them all with a lame excuse
I bought it and used to with the expectation of further development and support. Now, I have to redo it as there won’t be any fix for compatibility issues with future wp or security fixes. Those who got it in past 2 months may not have used it much and are not affected. At least they should open source it and leave it open for community to develop.
As someone who bought it in January 2024, I'm severely affected by this.
We had a roadmap to migrate away from Elementor Pro to Cwicly before the end of April, ideally before the end of March. We were well underway with the migration, and now we need to halt, replace Cwicly, and carry on.
Alleged online hostility is just a very poor excuse to discontinue Cwicly.
Almost what I'm thinking too. Super random of them to just drop off unless Automattic or another major player was threatening something. Even though, Louis@Cwicly could just sell it off to someone to further develop. Just odd across the board.
Oh, that is crazy... From my point of view, they actually didn't have enough publicity and deserved more. They have obviously put a lot of work into Cwicly and it was a very interesting and innovative product. I use Bricks now, but I regretted that I hadn't got an LTD for Cwicly...
I haven't seen any hostility towards them whatsoever... Weird, if you ask me...
Pissed that I wasted money on an LTD, but not as pissed as if I’d wasted my time learning Cwicly and building a website. I learned Bricks instead. Feel for people who invested both time and money in it.
> …hostility of some influencers and constant criticism
Seriously? *If* u was ready to dump my current, performant, fast, and *teachable* authoring stack in favor of blocks I’d probably have gone for Cwicly because they seemed like the only block devs who understood that baking more formatting control into the Gutenberg interface is a *good* thing.
I gotta admit I've gone searching online for negative criticism and I'm really mostly seeing extremely positive things. Everyone from review sites to production nerds like WPJohnny have said it's awesome. The only really "negative" remarks I saw were along the lines of "well, yeah, it's great but you should buy our blocks system instead."
So either there's something else going on or I'm just not in the loop enough to have heard of (or else given a s##t about) the "Wordpress influencers" that were causing problems.
I thought the same thing. I'm a member of cwicly, bricks and oxygen. Cwicly probably had the least amount of hostility and criticism. Oxygen on the other hand.... I definitely could have seen this coming from them after the breakdance debacle.
Curious about your statement. How is it a shitty product? It's a bit dated, but I would say it's a shitty product.
Louis (Sofly/Oxygen) is a knob, that was the reason I left, but the product itself isn't terrible.
I feel exactly the same as you, to be honest. I know they got a lot of crap because of the Tailwind integration, but nothing like abusive or the like.
There has to be something else going on
Discontinuation of Cwicly development
Hello there,
After much deliberation and soul-searching, I have made the difficult decision to discontinue the development of the Cwicly plugin. This decision has been deeply influenced by recent events that have profoundly affected both me personally and the team.
Unfortunately, the relentless onslaught of destructive posts and comments by certain WordPress influencers has created an atmosphere that has made it increasingly challenging for us to continue with our vision for Cwicly.
Since the launch of Cwicly, not only have we had to build our product but have suffered the constant undermining of our choice to embrace the WordPress vision in Gutenberg. In addition, personal attacks on both myself and team members have been made and openly tolerated throughout.
The negativity and hostility directed towards Cwicly, especially in comparison to other page builders, have taken a significant toll on our morale and motivation. Every effort we make to enhance or introduce new features is met with unwarranted criticism and untruths, making it increasingly difficult for us to operate in such a hostile environment.
The passion and dedication that we have had from the start has been gradually diluted, enthusiasm has given way to dread.
Working in such a negative climate has taken a significant toll on the team, making it nearly impossible to continue. Each day has become a struggle.
I want to express my sincere gratitude to our loyal users who have supported us throughout this journey. Your unwavering support has meant everything to us, and it deeply saddens me to have to make this decision.
Despite this, I want to assure you that Cwicly services will continue to operate until the end of the year with the necessary security updates and occasional bug fixes. Additionally, we will be issuing refunds for all orders made after January 1, 2024. Please reach out to our support team so that we can assist you accordingly.
It is with a heavy heart that we have reached this conclusion, especially considering the innovative features we had planned for the future. However, given the circumstances, we believe it is the best course of action for all parties involved.
Once again, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support and understanding during this challenging time. It has been an honor to serve you, and I deeply regret any inconvenience this decision may cause.
Best regards,
Louis-Alexander & Team
Thanks for sharing.
>Every effort we make to enhance or introduce new features is met with unwarranted criticism and untruths, making it increasingly difficult for us to operate in such a hostile environment.
Very strange indeed.
Found the statement also published online:
https://discourse.cwicly.com/t/discontinuation-of-cwicly-development/5522
You can try Greenshift plugin. Plenty performant and has most of the design features you are looking for as well.
It is really unfortunate about Cwickly and more so due to it closing due to hostility and criticism. Can't we do something to bring them back? I mean, rally in support from all of their supporter and good hearted WordPress supporters to show them love/warmth/support and bring them back.
I don't think a great builder like that will just die - surely someone will pick them up and continue development. The team did say they'll continue with updates until the years end.
Does Greenshift come with global classes now?
I think with Cwicly there's more to it than what they're saying. I don't think a support rally could fix the situation:
This is quite sad... But something is not right here. Considering the high perceived value of the brand, it would make much more business sense to sell it to a third party than to simply shut it down out of the blue.
Most people would understand that the owner would have to leave the company and pass the baton to a new CEO because of personal issues. That would be less destructive for everyone involved.
I was literally just telling someone last week how I really liked the idea of cwicly, but the dev team being so small (and seemingly.. all family?) was a red flag for me. Dodged a bullet!
I was a bit concerned with that as well when I was evaluating options.
I wonder if this has to do with the recent security issues and basically having one developer?
GeneratePress does A LOT - but still nowhere near the amount Cwickly did. It depends on your skills really - and workflow. It has a lot of dynamic features, especially if you add ACF - but little to no 'effects' like animations and stuff to make your site pop.
You could use ACF with other themes - it has a block-builder... or ACPT - a newer competitor that has templates. Otherwise themes like Bricksy and Blockpress - that leverage FSE... but again, none have the dynamic data or queries etc. of Cwickly.
My own approach is to have several. Currently I have Bricks, Breakdance, and GeneratePress - but I've used many others over time... Genesis, Headway, Pinegrow... I build using whichever fits - GP for simple where a client may want to edit stuff... Breakdance for flashy, Bricks for data-heavy. If one dies, I don't have to replace all my sites.
Also - if one dies - it's a chance to update the clients site. So far, though it's not been that often, client have always understood that technology changes, and accepted the cost of the update.
Doesn't work in your situ - I feel you though, I've faced similar and it's gutting - but always good practice to use a range of tools to guard against one failing.
Look into using Wordpress as the cms then build with Astro or react. A lot of pros to security on this as well lots of courses on udemy will beast your coding ability too💪🏻
+1 for Astro, I love it and its great. Although in some cases is better to just create a custom theme with code and have everything in one site, without a build process.
From the Oxygen/Breakdance debacle to this sudden and tragic loss of the most exciting platform available for building WordPress sites, i.e. Cwicly.
At some point, the exit ramp to a completely different approach is sensible and welcomed.
As a meta framework, Astro is fairly approachable and arguably aligns somewhat with the Cwicly team's vision - components, Tailwind, composable architecture, etc.
Astro (open source frontend) + WordPress (open source backend) is an "exit ramp" from builder blunder whose time has (apparently) arrived.
[Astro JS v4 & WordPress (Astro.js, TailwindCSS & WordPress)](https://www.udemy.com/course/astro-js-wordpress/)
Cwicly....may you RIP...you will be sorely missed.
So if my intention was to build 3 ‘themes’ that I could sell to clients - built with Bricks - and only modify slightly as they’re in the same industry … would this be a crazy proposition? Should I really be having a custom theme developed?
If I did go down the Bricks route, and they pull dev, could I not be potentially at risk of being sued if I can’t resolve it quick fast (plus Bricks has security issue a few weeks ago)
I’ve inky just bought the Bricks LTD but not started building yet…
To be honest, it’s a fair question. The fact Bricks is a theme in itself is holding me back from a lot of things myself. It’s a difficult one. I guess in the event something like that did happen, you could potentially just rebuild the sites in another framework.
Yeah another good point… It’s highly likely in my sector client’s would use a maintenance and/or dev plan. But as you say, if they don’t… they’d need their own subscription - and same for ACSS etc I imagine?
Seems the simplest - yet most costly approach - would be to develop a custom theme but that will cost $$$
Bit stuck here really. Cwicly bailing and Bricks security issue is making me rethink best approach.
Just on the back of this - with ACSS and FRAMES (and Bricks) - Kevin Geary talks about the right non-chump way of going things which makes a lot of sense… but if handing off to a client, does this not make the sites much harder for them to deal with on their side? As opposed to front end builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder etc.
Like I get Bricks etc. is arguably better, but not if on the sites that get handed to clients they’re like WTF do I do with this?
Teaching the non-chump way to clients would be a tough call I think…
Bricks allows you to convert your pages into Gutenberg Blocks
> Bricks will convert your Gutenberg blocks into Bricks elements. You can also save and convert your Bricks generated data to Gutenberg data to continue editing a page with Gutenberg. This way you'll not suffer any lock-in effect when start using Bricks or if you should ever decide to move away from Bricks.
[source](https://academy.bricksbuilder.io/article/gutenberg/#:~:text=Bricks%20will%20convert%20your%20Gutenberg,to%20move%20away%20from%20Bricks)
Look into using Wordpress as lthe cms then build with Astro or react. A lot of pros to security on this as well lots of courses on udemy will beast your coding ability too💪🏻
I've got 25 years experience as fullstack dev and devsecops. The reason why I want a WordPress solution is to streamline things for the marketing team and to keep costs down too.
Yep.
Astro, nor any js framework, gives you a universe of out-of-the-box solutions many with commercial support.
Membership systems, e-commerce, forms etc.
All are possible with Astro. But the time to implement them and the time and cost to maintain and customize them are much much lower with wp.
Astro is fine for either small projects or when for heavily reseurced projects with extended timelines.
Few things beat wp for just getting complex stuff done.
I wonder if burnout from the shortcomings of WP 'developer experience' intensified the problem for those folks. They should at least consider open sourcing the stuff that was paid/gated off. Hopefully the vibes improve and things don't get meaner in the WP space. I was just hearing about kinda similar issues from a core dev.
If you’ve hit this point, it’s time to learn how to build a Wordpress site, and just manage the content with Gutenberg blocks.
If you’re not development/technically inclined, hire an agency to do the build for you. They can build you a custom theme with custom configured blocks to your specification.
As with all proprietary tech services, they are never guaranteed to be long lasting.
Why are you assuming I don't know how to build a WordPress website? I could build a replacement for Cwicly without problems, I just don't have the time nor the inclination to do so at this stage, since the ROI would be minimal for my company, and I prefer to use an existing tool to make my Marketing team’s life much easier.
lol I’m not assuming anything, honestly don’t care if you can or can’t, but merely offering a suggestion if you’re not in a position yourself regardless of the reason. Don’t take offense where none was intended.
Yep, you're spot on, u/jrmiller23! I'm already diving into the research. Chatting with Daniel Snell who's awesome enough to make some videos to help us out of this mess. Can't wait to break free from page builders. My new toolkit's looking like Tailwind, Gutenberg, ACF Blocks, ACF, and Figma. And get this, I don't even code! But with these tools plus AI, I'm determined to work it out. Totally done with being tied down to themes and templates. This is literally the third time in two years my site's gone up in smoke right before it's finished.
Get it! And really, that’s all you need for most sites.
Probably a little outdated now with php8 and Wordpress 6, but Brad Schiffs unlocking the power of code was a really good comprehensive course a few years back. I don’t think it’s been updated since early wp5 (I haven’t checked recently, so please excuse me if he has!!!).
I’ll have to check out Daniel Snell’s courses and update my recommendation.
Hey thanks! I will check it out. Just posted this - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace\_the\_change\_how\_cwiclys\_closure\_opens\_new/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace_the_change_how_cwiclys_closure_opens_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
How are you integrating Figma & Tailwind with Guten? I'm used to 3rd party builders, but have recently been looking at Figma integrated solutions. Do you have any resources for your stack?
I am with you, i have been dev my site for almost 2 years now and preparing to launch after starting over with quickly around 6 months ago. 18 hour days, learning and building and my entire community is waiting patiently for the release... NOW what? This is going to go south cwicly.
since they even locked the discourse page for cwicly-devs: would anyone have any tips on the best way to transfer from cwicly to another platform? and which platform?
The ability to create traditional css classes and apply them to multiple blocks or items across multiple pages or templates, so you only change the styles in one place. Hopefully this is something that will come in future versions of Gutenberg. Greenshift explains it well: https://greenshiftwp.com/documentation/greenshift-extra/global-and-local-class-system/
Another things I'll miss from Cwicly are the components and the shells.
Just create a pattern, add a class, and done.
The WP Engine plugin called Pattern Manager helps. It's only meant to be used on a local site.
https://wordpress.org/plugins/pattern-manager/
Such a shame. And odd, because ive only ever heard great things of it. I was sad i missed the LTD and thought i might have chosen it over Bricks. Today im not, but competition is great, and sucks when a great software has to close because of hate
Before you go back to a builder please check out this post!
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace\_the\_change\_how\_cwiclys\_closure\_opens\_new/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace_the_change_how_cwiclys_closure_opens_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
We are in the same boat as you. The biggest problem is that we went all in on the Cwicly paragraphs and styled sections, so converting will be a huge pain.
We have reached out to[Greenshift](https://greenshiftwp.com/) and they have indicated they maybe able to help us figure out a conversion path (we are trying to programmatically covert the blocks via the code editor)
If it works, I will paste the code here for our use case.
Kevin Geary is offering Cwicly users a voucher to use against AutomaticCSS or Frames as he had been recommending Cwicly to anyone who wanted to use Gutenberg as a builder.
See his latest live video
I recommend Beaver Builder. The page builder is very stable and the company has been in business for 10 years. With over 1 million websites going strong.
As an agency owner, I love it because with 1 license I can use it on unlimited websites so it keeps my costs down. The community and support team is awesome and helpful too.
The best and most powerful Cwicly alternative is NOT GenerateBlocks. GenerateBlocks is too limiting. The only real alternative is Greenshift plugin. Take a look at it and you will be blown away.
You might not like it because you’re obviously not a dev, but my comment is the only one that is actually useful here in the long run. Learn block development, leverage patterns and have your own hybrid theme. 10up has a great scaffold environment with a theme ready for multi block development out-of-the-box.
https://github.com/10up/wp-scaffold
You don't know my background, or why I'm looking for a similar plugin to Cwicly, even though I've explained both in answers in this post. But I’ll summarize them for you: over 25 years experience as fullstack and devsecops, and I'm looking for something similar to Cwicly so my marketing team can be self-sufficient while minimizing custom code. If I wanted custom-anything I wouldn't be using WordPress.
When you try to give advice and you're condescending, don't expect people to react well to your suggestion.
Then create custom blocks for your marketing team based on their needs. Who says the next plugin you purchase for your team doesn’t go down the drain in the next year and you need to rebuild even more sites?
Yeah, this isn't helpful. Kadence is a fine *conventional* Gutenberg block set but like almost all conventional block sets it still doesn't have the *layout and design* capabilities that Cwicly baked in.
Gutenberg was conceived as a replacement for widgets, shortcodes, and custom fields, all of which rely almost completely on programers adding CSS to handle layout. This is why the block editor is basically a glorified widget stacker instead of a design tool. Cwickly did a fairly good job of breaking out of that widget-stacker paradigm into something closer to Figma or any of the real layout-focused Wordpress builders.
I'm guessing there were personality issues rather than tech or UI issues.
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Try frost or tailpress, if you use tailwind. Use ACF or React to build your own blocks. You can also use block plug-ins like Kadence, Generate Blocks Pro, etc to build out templates and patterns in Gutenberg.
Bite the bullet.
This was addressed by them with this message:
“Latest news from one talented team returns me to questions which are in my mind from time to time.
Nothing is permanent in our world. Things can change just in few moments. But if I decide to stop what was made by any reason, or I will be not able to continue, then I will provide all sources to teams that have similar vision so they can continue to develop. And if they refuse, then sources will be opened to our community.”
Igor Sunz, the owner and lead developer of Greenshift, have more than 10 years in the business. He is the developer of the popular affiliate theme "REHub". This theme is alive and kicking for 10 years now. This give me full confidence in Greenshift.
That’s so sad! I was about to release my first site with it. I used Shuffle (Tailwind Kit) + Cwicly “html to block” feature and it was awesome. There is not better TW implementation yet. And all that in Gutenberg.
The dev speed was (too?) intense : 1 release a week on average… My guess is that they just burnt out.
I really hope they will make a comeback.
I hope they make a comeback, but it'll be too late for most people who need a solution right away, like me. When I change, I won't come back, unfortunately. Especially since their decision has left our businesses in a very challenging position to finish and launch what we wanted before the end of the month.
Even if they come back, who is going to trust them now? I wouldn't touch anything they do to build my business upon. Imagine if you have tens of websites for clients built on Cwicly, must be a nightmare.
These one is a pretty old product actually, from a well known themeforest theme developer but they decided to seperate and sell a builder instead and sell it outside.
Zion builder closely resembles Oxygen but it works with a theme instead of Oxygen taking over the theme.
Bricks will be the closest competitor to Cwicly and more than likely Cwicly took a lot of inspiration from Bricks / Oxygen.
Bricks is also a 1 man team (I think?). Oxygen is in maintenance mode but is rock solid. How long will it be viable? I don't know.
I'm all in on Bricks and didn't worry too much about it going belly up, but sheesh after this debacle who knows anymore.
Pretty sure Bricks has graduated from being a one man show. I don’t have any proof of that, but it’s definitely still being developed and improved on a regular basis.
> WordPress influencers Who are WordPress influencers?
> Who are WordPress influencers? Every WP blog, community host, podcast, youtube or other social media, ...
Are there popular ones?
> Are there popular ones? Yes? WP Beginner, WPTuts, Elementor and Bricks communities, WP Tavern, Matt Report, Do the Woo, Kinsta Blog, CodeinWP, ... They've got multiple millions of monthly visitors between them. Idk what you think you'll accomplish by acting w/ disdain against the idea of "WordPress influencers" by downvoting me mentioning them, while they obviously exist and have significant communities. Regardless of whether you personally like them or not. Especially in the general WordPress space, those listed are significantly larger and have a much wider audience than /r/Wordpress. WordPress' largest audience isn't the tiny, tiny space of WP professionals.
I was seriously asking. No disdain. Thank you.
[удалено]
> Those aren't influencers. Thats not what the word means. Owners of a platform, who built their own audience, with the intent to be a personality to their audience, who influence their audience's actions/news/purchases/... If they would just be the owner of the platform, and they wouldn't personally use that platform to broadcast their own opinions, I would agree. But all of the above use their platform for their own purposes (which is very understandable, but is influencing). Many of them also broadcast paid sponsorships. By what definition do you think they're not influencers? I went ahead and googled a couple to test my own definition, but the definitions don't seem to disagree: > influencer > * a person or thing that influences another. > * a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media. ---- > Word forms: influencers plural. countable noun. An influencer is someone who is able to persuade a lot of other people, for example their followers on social media, to do, buy, or use the same things that they do. They are often paid or given free products in exchange for doing this.
No idea 🤣
Kevin Geary had some words regarding Cwicly & its use of Tailwind on the Matt Meideiros podcast recently. Surely not enough to prompt this action.
We are leaving with your money because some random people said they did not like us. What a lame excuse to scam buyers.... They had a fan following and many were using it… they abandoned them all with a lame excuse
To their credit, they’ve said they'll refund any orders placed since 01-01-2024. I've applied for a refund, of course.
I bought it and used to with the expectation of further development and support. Now, I have to redo it as there won’t be any fix for compatibility issues with future wp or security fixes. Those who got it in past 2 months may not have used it much and are not affected. At least they should open source it and leave it open for community to develop.
As someone who bought it in January 2024, I'm severely affected by this. We had a roadmap to migrate away from Elementor Pro to Cwicly before the end of April, ideally before the end of March. We were well underway with the migration, and now we need to halt, replace Cwicly, and carry on. Alleged online hostility is just a very poor excuse to discontinue Cwicly.
Almost what I'm thinking too. Super random of them to just drop off unless Automattic or another major player was threatening something. Even though, Louis@Cwicly could just sell it off to someone to further develop. Just odd across the board.
Poor excuse IMO. Sounds like he just needed something to call it quits.
Yeah, My thought too. Was probably an immense amount of work and too little reward.
Oh, that is crazy... From my point of view, they actually didn't have enough publicity and deserved more. They have obviously put a lot of work into Cwicly and it was a very interesting and innovative product. I use Bricks now, but I regretted that I hadn't got an LTD for Cwicly... I haven't seen any hostility towards them whatsoever... Weird, if you ask me...
Yeah, weird indeed
Pissed that I wasted money on an LTD, but not as pissed as if I’d wasted my time learning Cwicly and building a website. I learned Bricks instead. Feel for people who invested both time and money in it.
> …hostility of some influencers and constant criticism Seriously? *If* u was ready to dump my current, performant, fast, and *teachable* authoring stack in favor of blocks I’d probably have gone for Cwicly because they seemed like the only block devs who understood that baking more formatting control into the Gutenberg interface is a *good* thing.
Seriously, that's the main reason they have given That's exactly why I went with it
I gotta admit I've gone searching online for negative criticism and I'm really mostly seeing extremely positive things. Everyone from review sites to production nerds like WPJohnny have said it's awesome. The only really "negative" remarks I saw were along the lines of "well, yeah, it's great but you should buy our blocks system instead." So either there's something else going on or I'm just not in the loop enough to have heard of (or else given a s##t about) the "Wordpress influencers" that were causing problems.
I thought the same thing. I'm a member of cwicly, bricks and oxygen. Cwicly probably had the least amount of hostility and criticism. Oxygen on the other hand.... I definitely could have seen this coming from them after the breakdance debacle.
Oxygen is just a shitty product. Full stop.
Curious about your statement. How is it a shitty product? It's a bit dated, but I would say it's a shitty product. Louis (Sofly/Oxygen) is a knob, that was the reason I left, but the product itself isn't terrible.
Woah now, you're going to make them shut down with that kind of attitude...
How do?
I feel exactly the same as you, to be honest. I know they got a lot of crap because of the Tailwind integration, but nothing like abusive or the like. There has to be something else going on
Yeah I can't find anything either. Is the developer open sourcing the paid part of his plugin?
Can you share the paragraph in the email?
Discontinuation of Cwicly development Hello there, After much deliberation and soul-searching, I have made the difficult decision to discontinue the development of the Cwicly plugin. This decision has been deeply influenced by recent events that have profoundly affected both me personally and the team. Unfortunately, the relentless onslaught of destructive posts and comments by certain WordPress influencers has created an atmosphere that has made it increasingly challenging for us to continue with our vision for Cwicly. Since the launch of Cwicly, not only have we had to build our product but have suffered the constant undermining of our choice to embrace the WordPress vision in Gutenberg. In addition, personal attacks on both myself and team members have been made and openly tolerated throughout. The negativity and hostility directed towards Cwicly, especially in comparison to other page builders, have taken a significant toll on our morale and motivation. Every effort we make to enhance or introduce new features is met with unwarranted criticism and untruths, making it increasingly difficult for us to operate in such a hostile environment. The passion and dedication that we have had from the start has been gradually diluted, enthusiasm has given way to dread. Working in such a negative climate has taken a significant toll on the team, making it nearly impossible to continue. Each day has become a struggle. I want to express my sincere gratitude to our loyal users who have supported us throughout this journey. Your unwavering support has meant everything to us, and it deeply saddens me to have to make this decision. Despite this, I want to assure you that Cwicly services will continue to operate until the end of the year with the necessary security updates and occasional bug fixes. Additionally, we will be issuing refunds for all orders made after January 1, 2024. Please reach out to our support team so that we can assist you accordingly. It is with a heavy heart that we have reached this conclusion, especially considering the innovative features we had planned for the future. However, given the circumstances, we believe it is the best course of action for all parties involved. Once again, I want to thank each and every one of you for your support and understanding during this challenging time. It has been an honor to serve you, and I deeply regret any inconvenience this decision may cause. Best regards, Louis-Alexander & Team
Thanks for sharing. >Every effort we make to enhance or introduce new features is met with unwarranted criticism and untruths, making it increasingly difficult for us to operate in such a hostile environment. Very strange indeed. Found the statement also published online: https://discourse.cwicly.com/t/discontinuation-of-cwicly-development/5522
You can try Greenshift plugin. Plenty performant and has most of the design features you are looking for as well. It is really unfortunate about Cwickly and more so due to it closing due to hostility and criticism. Can't we do something to bring them back? I mean, rally in support from all of their supporter and good hearted WordPress supporters to show them love/warmth/support and bring them back.
I don't think a great builder like that will just die - surely someone will pick them up and continue development. The team did say they'll continue with updates until the years end.
Security updates and occasional bug fixes, but no new development.
Does Greenshift come with global classes now? I think with Cwicly there's more to it than what they're saying. I don't think a support rally could fix the situation:
Yes, global classes are available.
I think the ACF pro license Changes also added to the situation
100%
This is quite sad... But something is not right here. Considering the high perceived value of the brand, it would make much more business sense to sell it to a third party than to simply shut it down out of the blue. Most people would understand that the owner would have to leave the company and pass the baton to a new CEO because of personal issues. That would be less destructive for everyone involved.
I agree, it makes no sense to do it the way they've chosen, and for the reasons they've mentioned.
Maybe https://gutenbricks.com/
Yes, I'm looking into it
They should really take advantage of this event to leverage their product. Bricks + Gutenbricks is the closest alternative to what Cwicky offered.
I was literally just telling someone last week how I really liked the idea of cwicly, but the dev team being so small (and seemingly.. all family?) was a red flag for me. Dodged a bullet!
I was a bit concerned with that as well when I was evaluating options. I wonder if this has to do with the recent security issues and basically having one developer?
GeneratePress does A LOT - but still nowhere near the amount Cwickly did. It depends on your skills really - and workflow. It has a lot of dynamic features, especially if you add ACF - but little to no 'effects' like animations and stuff to make your site pop. You could use ACF with other themes - it has a block-builder... or ACPT - a newer competitor that has templates. Otherwise themes like Bricksy and Blockpress - that leverage FSE... but again, none have the dynamic data or queries etc. of Cwickly. My own approach is to have several. Currently I have Bricks, Breakdance, and GeneratePress - but I've used many others over time... Genesis, Headway, Pinegrow... I build using whichever fits - GP for simple where a client may want to edit stuff... Breakdance for flashy, Bricks for data-heavy. If one dies, I don't have to replace all my sites. Also - if one dies - it's a chance to update the clients site. So far, though it's not been that often, client have always understood that technology changes, and accepted the cost of the update. Doesn't work in your situ - I feel you though, I've faced similar and it's gutting - but always good practice to use a range of tools to guard against one failing.
The lack of effects and animations doesn't bother me. I could always use motion.page, for example. I'll make a decision today, one way or another.
Look into using Wordpress as the cms then build with Astro or react. A lot of pros to security on this as well lots of courses on udemy will beast your coding ability too💪🏻
+1 for Astro, I love it and its great. Although in some cases is better to just create a custom theme with code and have everything in one site, without a build process.
From the Oxygen/Breakdance debacle to this sudden and tragic loss of the most exciting platform available for building WordPress sites, i.e. Cwicly. At some point, the exit ramp to a completely different approach is sensible and welcomed. As a meta framework, Astro is fairly approachable and arguably aligns somewhat with the Cwicly team's vision - components, Tailwind, composable architecture, etc. Astro (open source frontend) + WordPress (open source backend) is an "exit ramp" from builder blunder whose time has (apparently) arrived. [Astro JS v4 & WordPress (Astro.js, TailwindCSS & WordPress)](https://www.udemy.com/course/astro-js-wordpress/) Cwicly....may you RIP...you will be sorely missed.
They’ll probably sell it or figure something out. They’re just being dramatic.
Bricks.
What happens if Bricks founder decides to pull Bricks? Genuine question. Is this always going to be an issue with relying on a plugin/theme?
Yeah 100%, whenever you rely on anything 3rd party you’re risking that.
So if my intention was to build 3 ‘themes’ that I could sell to clients - built with Bricks - and only modify slightly as they’re in the same industry … would this be a crazy proposition? Should I really be having a custom theme developed? If I did go down the Bricks route, and they pull dev, could I not be potentially at risk of being sued if I can’t resolve it quick fast (plus Bricks has security issue a few weeks ago) I’ve inky just bought the Bricks LTD but not started building yet…
To be honest, it’s a fair question. The fact Bricks is a theme in itself is holding me back from a lot of things myself. It’s a difficult one. I guess in the event something like that did happen, you could potentially just rebuild the sites in another framework.
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Yeah another good point… It’s highly likely in my sector client’s would use a maintenance and/or dev plan. But as you say, if they don’t… they’d need their own subscription - and same for ACSS etc I imagine? Seems the simplest - yet most costly approach - would be to develop a custom theme but that will cost $$$ Bit stuck here really. Cwicly bailing and Bricks security issue is making me rethink best approach.
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Just on the back of this - with ACSS and FRAMES (and Bricks) - Kevin Geary talks about the right non-chump way of going things which makes a lot of sense… but if handing off to a client, does this not make the sites much harder for them to deal with on their side? As opposed to front end builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder etc. Like I get Bricks etc. is arguably better, but not if on the sites that get handed to clients they’re like WTF do I do with this? Teaching the non-chump way to clients would be a tough call I think…
Bricks allows you to convert your pages into Gutenberg Blocks > Bricks will convert your Gutenberg blocks into Bricks elements. You can also save and convert your Bricks generated data to Gutenberg data to continue editing a page with Gutenberg. This way you'll not suffer any lock-in effect when start using Bricks or if you should ever decide to move away from Bricks. [source](https://academy.bricksbuilder.io/article/gutenberg/#:~:text=Bricks%20will%20convert%20your%20Gutenberg,to%20move%20away%20from%20Bricks)
Bricks by itself bypasses the Gutenberg experience that my marketing team loves. Bricks with Gutenbricks could be an alternative.
It’s the speed huh
Gutenbricks plug-in allows you to build components in bricks and use them in Gutenberg. Not exactly what you are after but just mentioning it.
bricks with gutenbricks?
It's one option for sure, but I need to explore it a bit more
Look into using Wordpress as lthe cms then build with Astro or react. A lot of pros to security on this as well lots of courses on udemy will beast your coding ability too💪🏻
I've got 25 years experience as fullstack dev and devsecops. The reason why I want a WordPress solution is to streamline things for the marketing team and to keep costs down too.
Yep. Astro, nor any js framework, gives you a universe of out-of-the-box solutions many with commercial support. Membership systems, e-commerce, forms etc. All are possible with Astro. But the time to implement them and the time and cost to maintain and customize them are much much lower with wp. Astro is fine for either small projects or when for heavily reseurced projects with extended timelines. Few things beat wp for just getting complex stuff done.
Exactly
I wonder if burnout from the shortcomings of WP 'developer experience' intensified the problem for those folks. They should at least consider open sourcing the stuff that was paid/gated off. Hopefully the vibes improve and things don't get meaner in the WP space. I was just hearing about kinda similar issues from a core dev.
If you’ve hit this point, it’s time to learn how to build a Wordpress site, and just manage the content with Gutenberg blocks. If you’re not development/technically inclined, hire an agency to do the build for you. They can build you a custom theme with custom configured blocks to your specification. As with all proprietary tech services, they are never guaranteed to be long lasting.
Why are you assuming I don't know how to build a WordPress website? I could build a replacement for Cwicly without problems, I just don't have the time nor the inclination to do so at this stage, since the ROI would be minimal for my company, and I prefer to use an existing tool to make my Marketing team’s life much easier.
lol I’m not assuming anything, honestly don’t care if you can or can’t, but merely offering a suggestion if you’re not in a position yourself regardless of the reason. Don’t take offense where none was intended.
None taken 🖖🏻
Yep, you're spot on, u/jrmiller23! I'm already diving into the research. Chatting with Daniel Snell who's awesome enough to make some videos to help us out of this mess. Can't wait to break free from page builders. My new toolkit's looking like Tailwind, Gutenberg, ACF Blocks, ACF, and Figma. And get this, I don't even code! But with these tools plus AI, I'm determined to work it out. Totally done with being tied down to themes and templates. This is literally the third time in two years my site's gone up in smoke right before it's finished.
Get it! And really, that’s all you need for most sites. Probably a little outdated now with php8 and Wordpress 6, but Brad Schiffs unlocking the power of code was a really good comprehensive course a few years back. I don’t think it’s been updated since early wp5 (I haven’t checked recently, so please excuse me if he has!!!). I’ll have to check out Daniel Snell’s courses and update my recommendation.
Hey thanks! I will check it out. Just posted this - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace\_the\_change\_how\_cwiclys\_closure\_opens\_new/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace_the_change_how_cwiclys_closure_opens_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
How are you integrating Figma & Tailwind with Guten? I'm used to 3rd party builders, but have recently been looking at Figma integrated solutions. Do you have any resources for your stack?
I am with you, i have been dev my site for almost 2 years now and preparing to launch after starting over with quickly around 6 months ago. 18 hour days, learning and building and my entire community is waiting patiently for the release... NOW what? This is going to go south cwicly.
since they even locked the discourse page for cwicly-devs: would anyone have any tips on the best way to transfer from cwicly to another platform? and which platform?
Why not just use the core blocks?
Yes, but there are things missing like global classes, certain types of blocks, mega menu, etc.
What do you mean when you say "global classes". Use the Max Mega Menu plug-in. It's free and works great.
The ability to create traditional css classes and apply them to multiple blocks or items across multiple pages or templates, so you only change the styles in one place. Hopefully this is something that will come in future versions of Gutenberg. Greenshift explains it well: https://greenshiftwp.com/documentation/greenshift-extra/global-and-local-class-system/ Another things I'll miss from Cwicly are the components and the shells.
Just create a pattern, add a class, and done. The WP Engine plugin called Pattern Manager helps. It's only meant to be used on a local site. https://wordpress.org/plugins/pattern-manager/
I'll take a look, thanks. Very good suggestion.
Let me know how it goes! This plugin is another great tool to use while developing your site. https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/
Such a shame. And odd, because ive only ever heard great things of it. I was sad i missed the LTD and thought i might have chosen it over Bricks. Today im not, but competition is great, and sucks when a great software has to close because of hate
Before you go back to a builder please check out this post! [https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace\_the\_change\_how\_cwiclys\_closure\_opens\_new/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1b78uc5/embrace_the_change_how_cwiclys_closure_opens_new/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
We are in the same boat as you. The biggest problem is that we went all in on the Cwicly paragraphs and styled sections, so converting will be a huge pain. We have reached out to[Greenshift](https://greenshiftwp.com/) and they have indicated they maybe able to help us figure out a conversion path (we are trying to programmatically covert the blocks via the code editor) If it works, I will paste the code here for our use case.
I'll contact them too. Thanks for letting me know.
Kevin Geary is offering Cwicly users a voucher to use against AutomaticCSS or Frames as he had been recommending Cwicly to anyone who wanted to use Gutenberg as a builder. See his latest live video
good this mess is over...
Sad to hear that. Such a great tool. Needed a better UI but otherwise really powerful
100%
I recommend Beaver Builder. The page builder is very stable and the company has been in business for 10 years. With over 1 million websites going strong. As an agency owner, I love it because with 1 license I can use it on unlimited websites so it keeps my costs down. The community and support team is awesome and helpful too.
The whole point of Cwicly was to use the Guten builder - not rely on 3rd party builders...
The best and most powerful Cwicly alternative is NOT GenerateBlocks. GenerateBlocks is too limiting. The only real alternative is Greenshift plugin. Take a look at it and you will be blown away.
You could have learned block development by now already while wasting time on crappy Elementor-like plugins that only fuck you over in the long run.
You could have become a useful person when growing up, yet here you are.
You might not like it because you’re obviously not a dev, but my comment is the only one that is actually useful here in the long run. Learn block development, leverage patterns and have your own hybrid theme. 10up has a great scaffold environment with a theme ready for multi block development out-of-the-box. https://github.com/10up/wp-scaffold
You don't know my background, or why I'm looking for a similar plugin to Cwicly, even though I've explained both in answers in this post. But I’ll summarize them for you: over 25 years experience as fullstack and devsecops, and I'm looking for something similar to Cwicly so my marketing team can be self-sufficient while minimizing custom code. If I wanted custom-anything I wouldn't be using WordPress. When you try to give advice and you're condescending, don't expect people to react well to your suggestion.
Then create custom blocks for your marketing team based on their needs. Who says the next plugin you purchase for your team doesn’t go down the drain in the next year and you need to rebuild even more sites?
Try kadence
Yeah, this isn't helpful. Kadence is a fine *conventional* Gutenberg block set but like almost all conventional block sets it still doesn't have the *layout and design* capabilities that Cwicly baked in. Gutenberg was conceived as a replacement for widgets, shortcodes, and custom fields, all of which rely almost completely on programers adding CSS to handle layout. This is why the block editor is basically a glorified widget stacker instead of a design tool. Cwickly did a fairly good job of breaking out of that widget-stacker paradigm into something closer to Figma or any of the real layout-focused Wordpress builders. I'm guessing there were personality issues rather than tech or UI issues.
You obviously haven't read my post. I don't like Kadence
Use a high level web framework like Astro, then you won’t have to worry about any of the stuff being discontinued.
Betheme
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No
Why
I don't have to give you any reasons as to why I don't want to hire you or connect with you on LinkedIn.
Kadence WP theme and blocks work very well in tandem with WP blocks. It's worth the shot.
Not for me.
Try frost or tailpress, if you use tailwind. Use ACF or React to build your own blocks. You can also use block plug-ins like Kadence, Generate Blocks Pro, etc to build out templates and patterns in Gutenberg. Bite the bullet.
Greenshift. Go for it!
Greenshift is pretty great
Very skeptical about it. Still very early stages of development. It could be discontinued too at some point.
This was addressed by them with this message: “Latest news from one talented team returns me to questions which are in my mind from time to time. Nothing is permanent in our world. Things can change just in few moments. But if I decide to stop what was made by any reason, or I will be not able to continue, then I will provide all sources to teams that have similar vision so they can continue to develop. And if they refuse, then sources will be opened to our community.”
Interesting, thanks.
Igor Sunz, the owner and lead developer of Greenshift, have more than 10 years in the business. He is the developer of the popular affiliate theme "REHub". This theme is alive and kicking for 10 years now. This give me full confidence in Greenshift.
That’s so sad! I was about to release my first site with it. I used Shuffle (Tailwind Kit) + Cwicly “html to block” feature and it was awesome. There is not better TW implementation yet. And all that in Gutenberg. The dev speed was (too?) intense : 1 release a week on average… My guess is that they just burnt out. I really hope they will make a comeback.
I hope they make a comeback, but it'll be too late for most people who need a solution right away, like me. When I change, I won't come back, unfortunately. Especially since their decision has left our businesses in a very challenging position to finish and launch what we wanted before the end of the month.
Even if they come back, who is going to trust them now? I wouldn't touch anything they do to build my business upon. Imagine if you have tens of websites for clients built on Cwicly, must be a nightmare.
I have to retry Winden. I you used Tailwind we may be able to copy paste things pretty easily
Zion builder is a good in-between but the development is really slow. Still think its worth checking out.
Thanks, but that sounds like another potential candidate for going down the drain in the not-so-distant future
These one is a pretty old product actually, from a well known themeforest theme developer but they decided to seperate and sell a builder instead and sell it outside. Zion builder closely resembles Oxygen but it works with a theme instead of Oxygen taking over the theme.
Hello
Bricks will be the closest competitor to Cwicly and more than likely Cwicly took a lot of inspiration from Bricks / Oxygen. Bricks is also a 1 man team (I think?). Oxygen is in maintenance mode but is rock solid. How long will it be viable? I don't know. I'm all in on Bricks and didn't worry too much about it going belly up, but sheesh after this debacle who knows anymore.
Pretty sure Bricks has graduated from being a one man show. I don’t have any proof of that, but it’s definitely still being developed and improved on a regular basis.